美国国家公共电台 NPR The American Dream Is Harder To Find In Some Neighborhoods

 

RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:

We'd like to think America is the land of equal opportunity. But that depends on exactly where in America you live. It's often said that you can predict the futures¹ of many kids by finding out the zip code where they grew up. An online data tool being made public today lets you see for yourself the link between where you are and the American dream. Here's NPR's John Ydstie.

JOHN YDSTIE, BYLINE²: Economist³ Raj Chetty has been worried about the fading American dream for years. He's crunched⁴ the numbers. And they're troubling. If you were born in the 1940s or '50s, he says, you were virtually guaranteed to achieve the American dream of earning more than your parents did. But...

RAJ CHETTY: You see that for kids turning 30 today who were born in the mid-1980s - only 50 percent of them go on to earn more than their parents did. That is, it's a coin flip⁵ as to whether you are now going to achieve the American dream.

YDSTIE: Chetty and his colleagues at Opportunity Insights, a research and policy institute located at Harvard, want to improve those odds⁶. So they've partnered with the U.S. Census⁷ Bureau to develop an online program. It works a lot like a Google map. You can see the whole country. Or you can zoom⁸ into local neighborhoods. And you can click on a neighborhood and get an immense amount of data from incomes and racial makeup⁹ to marriage figures.

CHETTY: We are able to pinpoint¹⁰, you know, what are the places where we're seeing lots of kids climbing the income ladder? What are the places where the outcomes don't look as good? And we've put this all out in the form of a publicly available, interactive¹¹ tool called the Opportunity Atlas¹² that we hope citizens, local policymakers, nonprofits, people working on these issues can use to make better decisions.

YDSTIE: Chetty found that moving out of a neighborhood with poor upward mobility¹³ to a better one increases lifetime earnings¹⁴ for low-income kids by an average of $200,000. Of course, moving a lot of people is impractical¹⁵. So the focus is on helping¹⁶ low-performing areas improve. Charlotte, N.C., has gotten a head start on this effort. Back in 2014, Chetty and his colleagues found Charlotte was dead-last out of 50 cities at providing upward mobility for low-income kids. That shocked many residents.

OPHELIA GARMON-BROWN: If you know anything about Charlotte, Charlotte wants to be No. 1.

YDSTIE: Ophelia Garmon-Brown, a prominent Charlotte physician, says that ranking ran counter to Charlotte's image of itself as a thriving banking¹⁷ center with an expanding high-tech¹⁸ sector¹⁹ and a city that's been a leader in job creation and wage growth over the past two decades.

GARMON-BROWN: I wasn't surprised that we had done poorly. I've been a physician for a lot of years, worked with people who live in poverty. So I saw it.

YDSTIE: What she saw was a segregated²⁰ city where low-income black residents especially faced little chance of moving up the economic ladder. Garmon-Brown joined an effort by the Foundation for the Carolinas to address the problem. The group identified early childhood development, college and career readiness, family stability and strong social networks as key factors that enhance upward mobility. It singled out segregation²¹ as a key obstacle. And now Charlotte officials are learning to use the Opportunity Atlas to effectively target some remedies, things like pre-K programs and affordable²² housing.

ALANNA WILLIAMS: So what I have up here right now is just kind of a pure map of median income in Charlotte.

YDSTIE: Alanna Williams, from the Chetty team, is demonstrating the Opportunity Atlas for a group that includes local officials. She zooms²⁴ into Charlotte and clicks on neighborhoods. If the area is reddish-brown, it signals low levels of upward mobility. If it's green or blue, it has higher opportunities.

WILLIAMS: So this is the outcomes for children who grew up in different tracks in Charlotte.

YDSTIE: Frank Barnes is the chief equity²⁵ officer for Charlotte-Mecklenburg schools. He says the tool has already exceeded his expectations.

FRANK BARNES: I think the key thing that has happened is that the Foundation for the Carolinas have brought a lot of partners to the table to think about how to act on these data. And I think that's the power. It's in the community collaboration²⁶ and the community partnership²⁷.

YDSTIE: Charlotte's effort to improve upward mobility is already taking shape at Sedgefield Middle School. It's located in a majority-white neighborhood not far from downtown Charlotte. But Assistant Principal Eric Tornfelt says the school's students are mostly black and Hispanic.

ERIC TORNFELT: So we got 48.9 percent are Hispanic - 44.5 percent are African-American. Four percent are white.

YDSTIE: It's not unusual for a public school in Charlotte to have a student body that's largely minority. That's because many white students attend private schools or public schools outside their neighborhoods. That segregation hinders upward mobility. James E. Ford²³, a former North Carolina teacher of the year, is working with Sedgefield's administration to make the school more racially balanced. Ford, now an education consultant²⁸, says two local elementary schools have already merged²⁹ for that reason.

JAMES E. FORD: Eventually, something similar is going to happen here. The demographics here are going to shift quite a bit. It's majority-black and -brown now. But in the coming years, it'll change. It'll start to look more like the neighborhood.

YDSTIE: But there's another challenge here beyond segregation. It's the lack of social networks minority children need to succeed. The Sedgefield neighborhood is more affluent³⁰ than a nearby majority-black neighborhood called Southside Park. But the Opportunity Atlas shows African-American boys growing up in Sedgefield in the 1980s and '90s are now doing worse than their counterparts from Southside Park. Ford says that might surprise some people.

FORD: We may assume because an area's affluent, like, that's a high-opportunity area. Well, the truth is that may not be a high-opportunity area, according to all the metrics that we're looking at.

YDSTIE: In this case, it may be that the majority-black neighborhood of Southside Park offers young, black men the social networks, friends, extended family, churches that help them get ahead. Those kinds of networks might not be accessible to them in a majority-white neighborhood. Ford says the Opportunity Atlas should help reduce misconceptions about economic mobility.

FORD: So this permits us to start making really smart and really intentional³¹ decisions so that 20, 30 years down the line, we can look and say, yeah, that was the right call.

YDSTIE: Charlotte is already taking significant steps in that direction. Mecklenburg County, which encompasses³² Charlotte, has committed to providing pre-K for all children. The city of Charlotte has a $50 million bond issue for affordable housing on the November ballot³³. Raj Chetty says he hopes the Opportunity Atlas will help communities across the country revive the American dream in their local neighborhoods. John Ydstie, NPR News, Charlotte, N.C.

(SOUNDBITE OF EDO.G'S "SITUATIONS (INSTRUMENTAL)"

MARTIN: You can find the Opportunity Atlas at oppurtunityatlas.org.

1 futures   

n.期货，期货交易

参考例句：

• He continued his operations in cotton futures.他继续进行棉花期货交易。
• Cotton futures are selling at high prices.棉花期货交易的卖价是很高的。

2 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

3 economist   

n.经济学家，经济专家，节俭的人

参考例句：

• He cast a professional economist's eyes on the problem.他以经济学行家的眼光审视这个问题。
• He's an economist who thinks he knows all the answers.他是个经济学家，自以为什么都懂。

4 crunched   

v.嘎吱嘎吱地咬嚼( crunch的过去式和过去分词 )；嘎吱作响；（快速大量地）处理信息；数字捣弄

参考例句：

• Our feet crunched on the frozen snow. 我们的脚嘎吱嘎吱地踩在冻雪上。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He closed his jaws on the bones and crunched. 他咬紧骨头，使劲地嚼。 来自英汉文学 - 热爱生命

5 flip   

vt.快速翻动；轻抛；轻拍；n.轻抛；adj.轻浮的

参考例句：

• I had a quick flip through the book and it looked very interesting.我很快翻阅了一下那本书，看来似乎很有趣。
• Let's flip a coin to see who pays the bill.咱们来抛硬币决定谁付钱。

6 odds   

n.让步，机率，可能性，比率；胜败优劣之别

参考例句：

• The odds are 5 to 1 that she will win.她获胜的机会是五比一。
• Do you know the odds of winning the lottery once?你知道赢得一次彩票的几率多大吗？

7 census   

n.(官方的)人口调查，人口普查

参考例句：

• A census of population is taken every ten years.人口普查每10年进行一次。
• The census is taken one time every four years in our country.我国每四年一次人口普查。

8 zoom   

n.急速上升；v.突然扩大，急速上升

参考例句：

• The airplane's zoom carried it above the clouds.飞机的陡直上升使它飞到云层之上。
• I live near an airport and the zoom of passing planes can be heard night and day.我住在一个飞机场附近，昼夜都能听到飞机飞过的嗡嗡声。

9 makeup   

n.组织；性格；化装品

参考例句：

• Those who failed the exam take a makeup exam.这次考试不及格的人必须参加补考。
• Do you think her beauty could makeup for her stupidity?你认为她的美丽能弥补她的愚蠢吗？

10 pinpoint   

vt.准确地确定；用针标出…的精确位置

参考例句：

• It is difficult to pinpoint when water problems of the modern age began.很难准确地指出，现代用水的问题是什么时候出现的。
• I could pinpoint his precise location on a map.我能在地图上指明他的准确位置。

11 interactive   

adj.相互作用的，互相影响的，（电脑）交互的

参考例句：

• The psychotherapy is carried out in small interactive groups.这种心理治疗是在互动的小组之间进行的。
• This will make videogames more interactive than ever.这将使电子游戏的互动性更胜以往。

12 atlas   

n.地图册，图表集

参考例句：

• He reached down the atlas from the top shelf.他从书架顶层取下地图集。
• The atlas contains forty maps,including three of Great Britain.这本地图集有40幅地图，其中包括3幅英国地图。

13 mobility   

n.可动性，变动性，情感不定

参考例句：

• The difference in regional house prices acts as an obstacle to mobility of labour.不同地区房价的差异阻碍了劳动力的流动。
• Mobility is very important in guerrilla warfare.机动性在游击战中至关重要。

14 earnings   

n.工资收人；利润，利益，所得

参考例句：

• That old man lives on the earnings of his daughter.那个老人靠他女儿的收入维持生活。
• Last year there was a 20% decrease in his earnings.去年他的收入减少了20%。

15 impractical   

adj.不现实的，不实用的，不切实际的

参考例句：

• He was hopelessly impractical when it came to planning new projects.一到规划新项目，他就完全没有了实际操作的能力。
• An entirely rigid system is impractical.一套完全死板的体制是不实际的。

16 helping   

n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的

参考例句：

• The poor children regularly pony up for a second helping of my hamburger. 那些可怜的孩子们总是要求我把我的汉堡包再给他们一份。
• By doing this, they may at times be helping to restore competition. 这样一来, 他在某些时候,有助于竞争的加强。

17 banking   

n.银行业，银行学，金融业

参考例句：

• John is launching his son on a career in banking.约翰打算让儿子在银行界谋一个新职位。
• He possesses an extensive knowledge of banking.他具有广博的银行业务知识。

18 high-tech   

adj.高科技的

参考例句：

• The economy is in the upswing which makes high-tech services in more demand too.经济在蓬勃发展，这就使对高科技服务的需求量也在加大。
• The quest of a cure for disease with high-tech has never ceased. 人们希望运用高科技治疗疾病的追求从未停止过。

19 sector   

n.部门，部分；防御地段，防区；扇形

参考例句：

• The export sector will aid the economic recovery. 出口产业将促进经济复苏。
• The enemy have attacked the British sector.敌人已进攻英国防区。

20 segregated   

分开的； 被隔离的

参考例句：

• a culture in which women are segregated from men 妇女受到隔离歧视的文化
• The doctor segregated the child sick with scarlet fever. 大夫把患猩红热的孩子隔离起来。

21 segregation   

n.隔离，种族隔离

参考例句：

• Many school boards found segregation a hot potato in the early 1960s.在60年代初，许多学校部门都觉得按水平分班是一个棘手的问题。
• They were tired to death of segregation and of being kicked around.他们十分厌恶种族隔离和总是被人踢来踢去。

22 affordable   

adj.支付得起的，不太昂贵的

参考例句：

• The rent for the four-roomed house is affordable.四居室房屋的房租付得起。
• There are few affordable apartments in big cities.在大城市中没有几所公寓是便宜的。

23 Ford   

n.浅滩，水浅可涉处；v.涉水，涉过

参考例句：

• They were guarding the bridge,so we forded the river.他们驻守在那座桥上，所以我们只能涉水过河。
• If you decide to ford a stream,be extremely careful.如果已决定要涉过小溪，必须极度小心。

24 zooms   

n.嗡嗡声( zoom的名词复数 )；隆隆声；（车辆等）疾驰的声音；变焦

参考例句：

• A sneeze zooms out of your mouth at over 600 m.p.h. 从你口中打出的喷嚏速度可达每小时600里。 来自互联网
• When the camera zooms in, the whole world watches out. 当镜头对准（汶川），全世界都在关注。 来自互联网

25 equity   

n.公正，公平，（无固定利息的）股票

参考例句：

• They shared the work of the house with equity.他们公平地分担家务。
• To capture his equity,Murphy must either sell or refinance.要获得资产净值，墨菲必须出售或者重新融资。

26 collaboration   

n.合作，协作；勾结

参考例句：

• The two companies are working in close collaboration each other.这两家公司密切合作。
• He was shot for collaboration with the enemy.他因通敌而被枪毙了。

27 partnership   

n.合作关系，伙伴关系

参考例句：

• The company has gone into partnership with Swiss Bank Corporation.这家公司已经和瑞士银行公司建立合作关系。
• Martin has taken him into general partnership in his company.马丁已让他成为公司的普通合伙人。

28 consultant   

n.顾问；会诊医师，专科医生

参考例句：

• He is a consultant on law affairs to the mayor.他是市长的一个法律顾问。
• Originally,Gar had agreed to come up as a consultant.原来，加尔只答应来充当我们的顾问。

29 merged   

（使）混合( merge的过去式和过去分词 )； 相融； 融入； 渐渐消失在某物中

参考例句：

• Turf wars are inevitable when two departments are merged. 两个部门合并时总免不了争争权限。
• The small shops were merged into a large market. 那些小商店合并成为一个大商场。

30 affluent   

adj.富裕的，富有的，丰富的，富饶的

参考例句：

• He hails from an affluent background.他出身于一个富有的家庭。
• His parents were very affluent.他的父母很富裕。

31 intentional   

adj.故意的，有意（识）的

参考例句：

• Let me assure you that it was not intentional.我向你保证那不是故意的。
• His insult was intentional.他的侮辱是有意的。

32 encompasses   

v.围绕( encompass的第三人称单数 )；包围；包含；包括

参考例句：

• The job encompasses a wide range of responsibilities. 这项工作涉及的职责范围很广。
• Its conservation law encompasses both its magnitude and its direction. 它的守恒定律包括大小和方向两方面。 来自辞典例句

33 ballot   

n.（不记名）投票，投票总数，投票权；vi.投票

参考例句：

• The members have demanded a ballot.会员们要求投票表决。
• The union said they will ballot members on whether to strike.工会称他们将要求会员投票表决是否罢工。