Crossing the Divide: The distance between rich and poor (VIDEO)

Many of us think of Bangkok’s slums and its glamorous shopping malls as embodying the rich-poor divide of the developing world. But few realize that some American metropolitan areas are beginning to mirror that level of inequality.

In fact, Fairfield County, Connecticut, which includes the posh town of Greenwich and the gritty industrial city of Bridgeport, has almost the same Gini Coefficient as Thailand. In this video, photographer Ed Kashi traveled on both sides of the tracks in Connecticut and in Bangkok. He worked with GlobalPost reporters Michael Moran, who came of age in Fairfield, and Patrick Winn, who has covered Bangkok for many years, to document the distance between the rich and the poor in both places. Although they are radically different, the parallels between Connecticut and Thailand may surprise you.

This story is presented by The GroundTruth Project.