TRANSPORTATION: CRITICAL IN SOCIAL MOBILITY

A car is an opportunity. It is an opportunity to do better work, more fun, deeper relationships, and an overall improved life. There are no guarantees, sure, but the odds of the better improve dramatically with wheels. 

There is data to back this up. Raj Chetty and Nathaniel Hendren, professor of Economics at Harvard University and co-Directors of the Equality of Opportunity Project, have long studied the barriers to escaping poverty.

They studied families moving to different cities in order to analyze the most pertinent factors of social mobility. You can read that study here. 

According to an article published in the New York Times, the researchers found that “the relationship between transportation and social mobility is stronger than that between mobility and several other factors, like crime, elementary-school test scores or the percentage of two-parent families in a community…”

A different report from a separate institution, NYU’s Rudin Center for Transportation, found collaborating evidence. You can find that study here. 

The NYT summarized the NYU report, “The study compared neighborhoods by accessibility to mass transit and the number of jobs within an hour’s commute. It found that residents of the areas least well served by mass transit relied on personal vehicles. Areas in the middle third — those with some, but insufficient, access to transportation — had the highest rates of unemployment and the lowest incomes, the study found.”

It’s common sense: if you have a car, your world expands. The opportunity to find and maintain superior employment skyrockets.

However, in today’s world, the idea that transportation is critical in escaping poverty is an observable fact.