February 03, 2010

New Yankees stadium a four-star hotel in a sea of poverty

Headline of the day, from my colleagues at the Village Voice blog: New Yankee Stadium Helps Lift Bronx to Poorest, Hungriest Place in America. (They're really on a roll.)

The details:

Here's new evidence of what the new Yankee Stadium has brought to The Bronx. Not only is the borough home to one of the poorest congressional districts in America -- the home of the new, heavily-subsidized stadium and the current World Champs can also boast that their 'hood is also the hungriest Congressional district in the nation!

As of the last census, in 2000, the 16th Congressional District was the poorest in the nation, with 42.2 percent of residents living below the poverty line. Now, nearly a decade later, a new Gallup poll finds that more than 36 percent of people in the 16th have reported that there are times when they have not had money to buy food for themselves or their family.

To be fair, the new Yankees stadium has only been open a year, and hadn't even opened when these numbers were compiled, so you can't actually blame Bronx hunger on the team, though it is reasonable to ask what the city could have done to alleviate poverty with its $691 million share of the stadium costs. And Bronx asthma is still fair game.