Poor are caught in sprawl trap

How we can make our cities greener and more equal at the same time | Grist: "Sprawl has trapped many Americans in poverty: Unable to afford a car, maintenance, insurance, and gasoline, they cannot get from their suburban homes to jobs. For many middle-class Americans, their car is an albatross, forcing them to spend too much money just getting to work everyday. That’s one reason that a recent Harvard study found that transit-rich coastal cities such as New York, San Francisco, Washington, D.C., and Boston ranked among the country’s top 10 metro areas for economic mobility, while auto-dependent Southern cities such as Atlanta and Jacksonville ranked near the bottom."