Nashvilles best suburbs

[numberfive]

Originally Posted by sucrose

Not sure what you mean by "isn't possible." The number of people occupying the bottom and top ends of the income spectrum are increasing with fewer people in the middle. That's a shrinking middle class.

I think that's what trips some people up: class should be separated by population, not income. Most people tend to do that anyway. Noodle on this a bit: is there a such thing as the top 5%? Or top 1%? Top 0.01%? If so, congratulations, you've just divided up class by population!

No matter where you draw the line between classes (maybe lower=20%, middle=21%-79%, upper=80%+), the lines never shrink or grow. The attributes of the people within those boundaries might change though. Income is only one attribute of class level. But let's focus on that. Maybe today the bottom 20% ("lower class") happens to have a median household income of $36k. If everybody in the country got a $50k bump in their salary tomorrow, the 20% in lower class doesn't automatically shift to middle class, they would still be lower class, since they'd still be in the bottom 20%.

I think this applies to the Nashville discussion because there are still wealthier areas and poorer areas (linked earlier in this thread). Right or wrong, the upper- and upper-middle class Nashville areas are just viewed as "more favorable".