The Examiner reported today on new census data that puts the DC’s median income at $52,000. But what is most striking is the economic divide between the city’s black and white citizens.
“Nearly 80 percent of the 108,000 District residents who live below the poverty line are black…. [The] median income for white residents was $88,969, while median income for blacks was $34,484.”
That really got me thinking … $34,484 per year… at a time when real estate in DC is all about new construction, upgrades and renovation… where do these people live when the average monthly rent for a one-bedroom apartment is $1100???
I covet the floor plans at 22West, a new building going up at the corner of New Hampshire and M Streets, NW. Construction isn’t finished yet and already 50 percent of the units have been sold. Pricing for a 948 s.f. one-bedroom apartment starts at $765,500.
How does the average white resident making $88,969 a year afford that, much less your average black resident?
I’m just whining because though I make more than my parents salaries combined when they were my age, I will never afford to buy a three-bedroom 1900 sf anything. And if I feel this hopeless of ever owning a little patch of DC, how does the person bringing in $34,484 feel?
malaland.net 
31 August 2007 at 6:30 pm
That person is feeling much more hopeless than you are, that’s for sure. Crazy situation. Sucks knowing that you won’t ever be able to afford to own a decent place in this area unless you marry a millionaire.
5 September 2007 at 6:58 am
Hence my flight to the suburbs, which broke my heart at the time. I could afford something in an “up and coming neighborhood” (because doesn’t every neighborhood in D.C. have the possibility of eventual gentrification), but nothing that I wanted to bring a newborn home to if I could avoid it.
Some friends of mine and I were just talking about this the other day, how weird it is that D.C. has no middle class.