Racial Equity

Twitter Chat: How Your Zip Code Determines Your Future

September 22, 2015  • Rachel Landis, Guest Blogger

In the United States, zip codes are a fundamental determinant of one’s future financial success. The communities we grow up in as children shape the fiscal conditions we confront as adults — from our chances at upward mobility to equal pay in the workplace.

Those born into wealthier areas are often given the upper socioeconomic hand. But is there a way to level the playing field? That’s what the Aspen Institute Roundtable on Community Change (RCC) wants to find out. In a recent Twitter Q&A, PBS NewsHour crowd sourced the online community to discuss ways institutional change can be implemented within a systematically unequal society.

Featured voices in the conversation included:

  • Peter Edelman, Georgetown University Law professor and Center on Poverty and Inequality faculty director;
  • Dr. Gretchen Susi, RCC director;
  • Dr. Shaun Harper, University of Pennsylvania Center for the Study of Race and Equity in Education executive director;
  • Ben Scuderi, pre-doctoral fellow and Equality Of Opportunity (EOO) Project researcher.

Here’s what the Twittersphere had to say.

Q1: How do you think the neighborhood you grew up in affected your life? Tell us your story.

Q2: What other evidence suggests growing up in a higher income neighborhood can have long-term benefits on a child’s life?

 

Q3: What other evidence suggests growing up in a higher income neighborhood can have long-term benefits on a child’s life?

Q4: What impact can local zoning laws have on racial inequality? 

Q5: Do methods of improving odds for poor youth in communities differ depending on the area?

Q6: Is there a lack of upward mobility for minority groups within the US as compared to other countries?

Q7: Should social mobility be tackled at a local level or at a broader level?

Q8: Can we do something prompt and efficient in our communities to encourage upward mobility?

Q9: From the EOO Project and more, we know there are benefits to moving low-income families to high-income areas. Are there risks?

Q10: What resources are available when families cannot relocate to other areas, but still want success for their children?

Related Posts