Poverty in Smyrna

As I am fat I came across an article about obesity in Tennessee. Titled "Tennessee's obesity epidemic: Fighting the big fight"...'Big fight'? Oh those wacky writers at the Tennessean and their efforts at word play. While the article was pretty good I feel they totally overlooked a few items of major importance. I'm not here to discuss those, but to talk about an innocuous line in the article.

Her organization takes government housing residents to the Murfreesboro farmers’ market, teaching them how to buy and cook what’s in season. The extension runs parent-child cooking and fitness programs at high-poverty schools in Smyrna and La Vergne and free wellness programs through businesses.

I know that poverty exists. It is a fact of life. I know there are poor people in Smyrna. I myself live in a budget restricted household. I joke with my wife that we make just a little to much to get assistance, but not enough to move forward. Life sometimes sucks.

I was surprised as the idea of "high-poverty schools" in Smyrna. I know that the reality is that there is poverty, but for certain schools to be 'high-poverty' rather blew my mind. I decided to do a little digging.

I first went to Wikipedia as they normally list some basic economic demographics in their descriptions of municipalities. Wiki uses the 2000 census and says about the poverty level for Smyrna.

The median income for a household in the town was $44,405, and the median income for a family was $51,550. Males had a median income of $37,130 versus $27,325 for females. The per capita income for the town was $19,704. About 6.7% of families and 8.8% of the population were below the poverty line, including 11.4% of those under age 18 and 8.2% of those age 65 or over.

Poverty according to WIKI
6.7% Families
8.8% Population
11.4% Under 18
8.2% 65 and over

I went to the National Poverty Center at the University of Michigan and got these numbers.
14.3% Population (2009)
20.7% Under 18 (2008)
29.9% Household run by single women (2009)
16.9% Household run by single men (2009)
5.8% Married couple Household (2009)

Looking at these numbers from WIKI Smyrna seems a comfortable town to live in and has avoided the harsh poverty issues that many urban industrial towns suffer as factories shut down. I then decided to go to the U.S.Census bureau.

The census only had results for the 2000 census, but I was able to find some interesting items. The first two items shows the individual and family poverty levels and their percentages by using a map. Damn! My neighborhood sucks if this is true.






Here is the basic raw data from the census information for 37167. It should be noted that 37167 does cover a little area that is NOT Smyrna proper, but since it seems that poverty is concentrated in the 1-24, Sam Ridley, Nissan Blvd. and Lowry Street the addition of outlying areas would only benefit the final numbers.



While Smyrna does have poverty the basic numbers shows that Smyrna has a comfortable buffer between the national average and our towns.

Being poor still has a social stigma associated with it. That somehow you are mostly responsible for that fact. The article really did not address in detail a few problems that I'm not going to go into right now. I'm just saying that the term "high-poverty" seemed out of place for Smyrna. The numbers seemingly back up that view. While Smyrna does have poverty, and proper efforts to address the problems associated with poverty are always welcome, the term 'high poverty' is out of place in my view.

I will admit that I do not know the school zones for Smyrna, and a school with most students from the center zone would make a school look "high-poverty" when compared to Smyrna, but not national average.