Wealth and Towns

I do not think how a society deals with its poverty or its total wealth should be the chief indicator of the health of the society.

However, I think it can tell you a lot about the town. I was trying to come up with other important things, and I thought of "crime rates" (serious and non-serious crime), school status, and general neighborhood friendliness. The problem is, all of these things in someway or another come down to wealth. It has been statically proven that unfortunately crime goes up in areas with low socio-economic status. Good schools often come with higher taxes which again equates to money. Lastly, (though this is completely an opinion) people in bad neighborhoods (those with out money) will probably have worse neighborhood relations because they will be working long and hard hours, which in turn will leave less time for them to spend building up relations.

Therefore I do not think that we should look at the wealth or poverty levels of a town to determine if it is a good town. However if you want to get a general feeling about it, in a very very stereotyping and essentialist way, it is concievable that just looking at the median income would tell you what you need to know.