[Lee Stewart]

"Home to some of the wealthiest and some of the poorest towns in the United States, New York has the worst income inequality of any state. In New Square, a small town in southern New York, most households earn $24,000 a year or less. Meanwhile, less than 60 miles away, in the Long Island neighborhood of East Hills, the typical household earns $199,000 a year. New Square also has a poverty rate of 64.4% -- the highest in both the state and the country."

What is not in the description above is the reason for it's poverty. New Square is an all-Hasidic village in the town of Ramapo, Rockland County, New York. It is located north of Hillcrest, east of Viola, south of New Hempstead, and west of New City. As of the 2010 census, it had a population of 6,944. Its inhabitants are predominantly members of the Skverer Hasidic movement who seek to maintain a Hasidic lifestyle disconnected from the secular world.

Being originally from NYS and travelling extensively throughout the entire state, I never heard of New Square . . . and I'm Jewish, but not a Hasidic Jew.