Monday, November 18, 2013

The Hartford Public Library: From Serving One of America's Richest Cities to Serving One of Its Poorest



History of the Hartford Public Library



Poverty in a Land of Plenty: Can Hartford Ever Recover?  (The New York Times, 8/26/2002)

Excerpt:  Hartford's descent reflects the central conundrum of Connecticut, which has the nation's highest per capita income but also has a split-level economy of affluent suburbs and almost universally floundering cities. And its story sums up the question central to all of America's troubled cities: What role, if any, should their wealthy suburbs and state governments play in their recovery?

10 years later.

Hartford Highlights a State's Divide.  (The Wall Street Journal, 9/30/2012)

Excerpt:    This city was once among the country's wealthiest, with a thriving financial services sector that earned it the nickname "the Insurance Capital of the World." 

Now, after decades of decline, more than one in three people here—and almost half of the city's children—lives in poverty, record levels that make Hartford the most visible symbol of Connecticut's widening disparity between the wealthy suburbs and its struggling urban centers.

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