Poverty
Isan’s economic disadvantages have caused great poverty. In 1995, 28% of the population was classed as below the poverty line, compared to just 7% in Central Thailand. In 2000, per capita income was just 26,317 baht, compared to 208,434 in Bangkok. Even within Isan, there is a rural/urban divide. In 1995, all of Thailand's ten poorest provinces were in Isan, the poorest being Sisaket. However, most wealth and investment is concentrated in the four major cities of Khorat, Ubon, Udon and Khon Kaen. These four provinces account for 40% of the region’s population.
Read more about this topic: Economy Of Isan
Famous quotes containing the word poverty:
“There is something about poverty that smells like death. Dead dreams dropping off the heart like leaves in a dry season and rotting around the feet; impulses smothered too long in the fetid air of underground caves. The soul lives in a sickly air. People can be slave-ships in shoes.”
—Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960)
“To be idle and to be poor have always been reproaches, and therefore every man endeavours with his utmost care to hide his poverty from others, and his idleness from himself.”
—Samuel Johnson (1709–1784)
“I respect not his labors, his farm where everything has its price, who would carry the landscape, who would carry his God, to market, if he could get anything for him; who goes to market for his god as it is; on whose farm nothing grows free, whose fields bear no crops, whose meadows no flowers, whose trees no fruit, but dollars; who loves not the beauty of his fruits, whose fruits are not ripe for him till they are turned to dollars. Give me the poverty that enjoys true wealth.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)