Is the Creative Class Really Taking Over Cities? Verdict: Not Proven

In today's Washington Post, Emily Badger uses a set of maps to prove her claim that an affluent "creative class" is taking over urban cores, and as a result  "service and working-class residents are effectively left with the least desirable parts of town, the longest commutes and the fewest amenities. " But her maps don't seem to support her point.  In the article's color-coded maps, gray and pink mean "service class" and purple means "creative class."  

If her claim was correct, every neighborhood for miles around downtown would be purple.  But in Chicago and Washington and Houston, there seems to be a small purple ring around downtown- but except for that, the city is divided into a purple side (in Washington and DC, West; in Chicago, north) and a gray/pink side. Badger supplies approximately zero evidence that the pink side has worse transit service than the purple side. I'm not saying her claim is wrong- but her maps haven't proven the case.