Opportunity Mapping: Mapping to Advocate and Promote Social and Racial Justice

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Opportunity Mapping Mapping to Advocate and
Promote Social and Racial Justice
Workshop Presentation for Colour of Poverty
Provincial Forum on the Racialization of
Poverty Ryerson University, Toronto,
Ontario April 29th 2008
Jason Reece, AICP Senior Researcher
Reece.35_at_osu.edu

• Kirwan Institute for the Study of
• Race Ethnicity
• The Ohio State University

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Todays Discussion

• Todays discussion
• An opportunity oriented model of social justice
• An introduction to mapping and GIS
• Applications how have maps and opportunity maps
  been utilized to move advocacy forward?
• Opportunity mapping analysis narrative to
  support social/racial justice

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I. An Opportunity Oriented Model of Social Justice

• Workshop Presentation for
• Colour of Poverty Provincial Forum on the
  Racialization of Poverty
• Ryerson University, Toronto, Ontario
• April 29th 2008

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Neighborhoods and Access to Opportunity

• Five decades of research indicate that your
  environment has a profound impact on your access
  to opportunity and likelihood of success
• Impoverished people of color are far more likely
  to live in neighborhoods of concentrated poverty
• These high poverty environments create deplorable
  living conditions and are a manifestation of
  living isolated from opportunity

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The Cumulative Impacts of Spatial, Racial and
Opportunity Segregation
Segregation impacts a number of life-opportunities
Impacts on Health
School Segregation
Impacts on Educational Achievement
Exposure to crime arrest
Transportation limitations and other inequitable
public services
Job segregation
Neighborhood Segregation
Racial stigma, other psychological impacts
Impacts on community power and individual assets
Adapted from figure by Barbara Reskin at
http//faculty.washington.edu/reskin/
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Housing location determines access to schools.
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jobs
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neighborhood amenities
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The Impact of Place Qualitative Research from
the MTO Program

• Reflections on living in a low opportunity
  community
• "It was like being in a war zone. It was really
  bad...A lot of drug dealings. Shoot-outs. Girls
  getting beat up by their boyfriends. Young
  girlsEverybody has such low self-esteem and no
  regard for each other. Nobody looked out for
  each other. It was horrible.
• Impact of moving to opportunity
• "I just got promoted to a higher
  position...Moving has done wonderful things for
  me and my family. It has given me an outlook on
  things that I'm surrounded by. Better
  neighborhood, better schools for my kids, a
  better job, great things for me."
• "It gave me a better outlook on life, that there
  is a life outside of that housing."

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Racial Segregation, Opportunity Segregation and
Racial Disparities

• Housing policies, discrimination, land use policy
  and patterns of regional investment and
  disinvestment converge to produce continued
  racial segregation in our society
• Producing a racial isolation in neighborhoods
  that are lacking the essential opportunities to
  advance in our society (fueling racial
  disparities)

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Place and Life Outcomes

• Housing, in particular its location, is the
  primary mechanism for accessing opportunity in
  our society
• For those living in high poverty neighborhoods
  these factors can significantly inhibit life
  outcomes
• Individual characteristics still matter but so
  does environment
• Environment can impact individual decision making

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Who Lives in Concentrated Poverty Neighborhoods?
(US Data)

• Over 3.1 million African Americans lived in
  Concentrated Poverty Neighborhoods in 2000,
  Blacks and Latinos represent nearly 3 out of 4
  residents in these neighborhoods
• Nearly 1 out of 10 Blacks lived in a concentrated
  poverty neighborhood in 1999, compared to 1 out
  of 100 Whites
• Whites only make 30 of people living in high
  poverty neighborhoods, although they represent
  55 of the total population living in poverty

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Who Lives in Concentrated Poverty Neighborhoods?
(Toronto Data)

• Minority families made up 77.5 of poor families
  residing in high poverty neighborhoods in Toronto
  in 2001
• The 2005 family poverty rate in Toronto was
  28.8, compared to a national rate of 19.5
• Source The United Way of Greater Toronto

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High Poverty Neighborhoods in Toronto
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A Transformative Agenda Achieving Equity
through an Opportunity Based Model of Social
Justice

• Everyone should have fair access to the critical
  opportunity structures needed to succeed in life
• Low Opportunity neighborhoods limit the
  development of human capital
• A Community of Opportunity approach can develop
  pathways that result in increased social and
  economic health, benefiting everyone

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An opportunity based approach

• Strategies for connecting to opportunity
• A people-focused approach that gives families
  more choice in where to live and go to school
• An in-place strategy that seeks to bring
  investment and resources into distressed
  communities
• A linkages approach that connects low-income
  neighborhoods and residents to opportunity
  through improved transportation and social or
  business networking

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An Opportunity Based Housing Policy

• Affordable housing must be deliberately and
  intelligently connected to high performing
  schools, sustainable employment, necessary
  transportation infrastructure, childcare, and
  institutions that facilitate civic and political
  activity

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II. Introduction to Mapping and GIS

• Workshop Presentation for
• Colour of Poverty Provincial Forum on the
  Racialization of Poverty
• Ryerson University, Toronto, Ontario
• April 29th 2008

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Maps Powerful Visual Tools

• Why is a map an excellent visual tool to inform
  someone about an issue/problem or solution?
• Maps are incredibly efficient, compacting volumes
  of data into single pictures that can be
  understood at a glance
• One map may contain tens of thousands of pieces
  of information than can be understood in seconds
• A good map can enable you to tell a story or
  solve a problem
• Research has shown that people can solve problems
  faster with map based information, than by
  looking at charts, tables or graphs

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Maps Powerful Visual Tools

• By quickly glancing at this map of foreclosures
  in the Columbus region, you can quickly assess
  and understand thousands of individual bits of
  information

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Analytical Capability

• GIS has tremendous analytical capability because
  of the ability to overlay many layers of
  information
• Allowing for statistical, geographic analysis of
  large amounts of data
• GIS systems are also incredibly efficient for
  storing large volumes of information in a format
  that can be easily referenced and analyzed

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Demand
Connection
Supply
Layering of Information
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Space and Regional Equity

• Why are maps particularly effective in dealing
  with issues of equity?
• Regional, racial and social inequity often
  manifest as spatial inequity
• (Spatial Racism)
• Maps are naturally the best tools to display this
  spatial phenomena
• Maps give us the opportunity to look at our
  entire regions or states
• Informing people about an issue at a scale they
  may not usually think of or linking communities
  sharing similar problems

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III. Applications how have maps and been
utilized to move advocacy forward?

• Workshop Presentation for
• Colour of Poverty Provincial Forum on the
  Racialization of Poverty
• Ryerson University, Toronto, Ontario
• April 29th 2008

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Using Maps for Advocacy

• In our work we see mapping as serving two primary
  advocacy goals
• Analysis
• Existing conditions, spatial trends, scenarios,
  optimization etc.
• Storytelling
• What's your narrative?

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Analytical Examples

• Are minority businesses in areas of economic
  opportunity? (Cleveland)
• Are hospital investments benefiting communities
  of color? (Columbus)
• How should EITC advocacy be tailored? (Columbus)
• Are job growth areas connected to transit?
  (Baltimore)

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MBE and Projected Job Change 2000-2030
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Hospital Investments and African American
NeighborhoodsColumbus
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Health Care Services, Race Poverty in NYC
Opportunity Agendas Healthcare That Works
(http//www.healthcarethatworks.org/maps/nyc/)
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Where Should EITC Advocacy be Targeted?
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Spatial MismatchJob Growth PublicTransit in
Baltimore

• The following map illustrates the mismatch
  between job growth and transit in Baltimore

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Narratives Examples

• Subsidized housing policy is reinforcing
  segregation (Baltimore)
• Foreclosures in African American neighborhoods
  are due to subprime lending patterns (Cleveland)
• Vacant property problems are spreading, vacant
  property challenges are not just an inner city
  problem (Detroit)

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Conditions in Baltimore

• Subsidized housing opportunities in Baltimore are
  generally clustered in the regions predominately
  African American neighborhoods

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Subprime Lending, Race and Foreclosure
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Subprime Lending, Race and Foreclosure
Maps Produced and adapted from Charles Bromley,
SAGES Presidential Fellow, Case Western University
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Looking at Issues Across Time and Space The
Growing Vacant Land Problem in Detroit
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IV. Opportunity Mapping Analysis Narrative to
Support Social/Racial Justice

• Workshop Presentation for
• Colour of Poverty Provincial Forum on the
  Racialization of Poverty
• Ryerson University, Toronto, Ontario
• April 29th 2008

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Opportunity Mapping Combining Analysis with a
Strong Narrative

• Opportunity mapping is a research tool used to
  understand the dynamics of opportunity within
  metropolitan areas
• The purpose of opportunity mapping is to
  illustrate where opportunity rich communities
  exist (and assess who has access to these
  communities)
• Also, to understand what needs to be remedied in
  opportunity poor communities

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Opening the Opportunity Narrative

• All of us do not have equal talent, but all of
  us should have an equal opportunity to develop
  our talents.
• - John Fitzgerald Kennedy
• I look forward confidently to the day when all
  who work for a living will be one with no thought
  to their separateness as Negroes, Jews, Italians
  or any other distinctions. This will be the day
  when we bring into full realization the American
  dream -- a dream yet unfulfilled. A dream of
  equality of opportunity, of privilege and
  property widely distributed a dream of a land
  where men will not take necessities from the many
  to give luxuries to the few
• -Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.

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Baltimore Opportunity and Subsidized Housing

• Subsidized housing opportunities in Baltimore are
  generally clustered in the regions lowest
  opportunity neighborhoods

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Analysis and Narrative African American men are
isolated from neighborhoods of opportunity in
Detroit
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background (contd.)

• Evolved out of neighborhood indicators project
• Neighborhood Indicators
• Census 2000 data provided detailed neighborhood
  indicators
• Resulted in surge in neighborhood indicators
  based analysis
• Provided a snapshot of social and economic health
  of neighborhoods
• Shortcomings
• Each indicator is analyzed and mapped separately
• Overlay provides a complex view, hard to
  interpret

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background (contd.)

• Resulted in a methodology that captures region
  wide opportunity distribution, in a comprehensive
  manner and it is reflective of todays
  metropolitan characteristics
• Ignores Urban-Suburban dichotomy
• Reflective of new trends decline of the inner
  suburbs, exurbs, inner city gentrification
• Reflective of the unique nature of each
  community e.g. Austin, TX vs. Cleveland, OH

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Structural racism and systems thinking

• Systems thinking Not just one measure of
  opportunity (or deprivation) but cumulative,
  relational, mutual effects and drivers
• Learning in complex systems depends on feedback
  loops

Figure from Sterman, J.D., 1994. Learning in and
about complex systems, System Dynamics Review
10(2) 291-330
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Opportunity Mapping Systems Thinking

• Opportunity mapping tries to capture the effects
  of these relationships
• Simply using poverty rate as a proxy measure is
  insufficient (and does not advance a structural
  understanding)
• Lack of opportunity results from multiple,
  cumulative layers of disenfranchisement
• Analysis points the way to potential policy
  interventions in multiple domains
• Opportunity mapping allows for continuous
  monitoring / feedback

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Methodology (Overview)

• Opportunity mapping methodology
• Requires a comprehensive assessment of local
  indicators related to opportunity
• Economic conditions, education, neighborhood
  health, housing etc.
• Would be extremely difficult without Geographic
  Information Systems technology
• Standardize indicators for comparison
• Average across multiple indicators to create
  opportunity index
• Break Census Tracts into quintiles (based on
  opportunity index score) to distinguish between
  various opportunity categories (very low, low,
  moderate, high, very high)

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MethodologyIndicator Categories

• Education
• Student/Teacher ratio? Test scores? Student
  mobility?
• Economic/Employment Indicators
• Unemployment rate? Proximity to employment? Job
  creation?
• Neighborhood Quality
• Median home values? Crime rate? Housing vacancy
  rate?
• Mobility/Transportation Indicators
• Mean commute time? Access to public transit?
• Health Environmental Indicators
• Access to health care? Exposure to toxic waste?
  Proximity to parks or open space?

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Opportunity Mapping Initiatives

• Austin
• Ohio Educational Opportunity
• Cleveland
• African American Males and Communities of
  Opportunity
• Baltimore
• Other on-going projects Atlanta, Massachusetts

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• Austin, TX

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Background on the Austin Initiative

• The Central Texas Opportunity initiative was
  initiated by Community Partnership for the
  Homeless and involved a steering committee
  representing a diverse array of organizations in
  the Central Texas region
• The committee included representatives from
• PeopleFund, a regional community development
  financial institution
• Envision Central Texas, a regional planning body
  
• Capital Metro, the regions public transit
  authority
• the Indigent Care Collaborative, a non-profit
  health organization focused on public health
  issues for the poor
• Capitol Area Council of Governments
• United Way Capital Area
• Habitat for Humanity
• and several professors from the University of
  Texas Community Regional Planning and Public
  Health Departments

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Indicators of Opportunity Austin
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How is Opportunity Distributed in a Hot Market
City? (Austin, TX) Opportunity in the Austin
region is more centralized (not a hollow region
like Cleveland or Baltimore). Although,
opportunity is more centralized it is still
spatially segregated.
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An in-depth view of the distribution of high and
low opportunity areas in and around the City of
Austin
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Linguistically Isolated People and the
Comprehensive Opportunity Map for the Austin
Region
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Children of Color and Educational Opportunity
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Public Health and Environmental
Quality Opportunity Map (based on indicators of
public health and environmental quality)
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Using Opportunity Mapping Data to Explore Linkages

• Example How is the regions public transit
  infrastructure connected to the regions health
  care facilities (clinics, physicians offices,
  hospitals)
• Public transit lines are well connected to public
  health resources in the City of Austin, but
  transit access gaps exist with regard to health
  care resources directly to the west and north of
  the City of Austin

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(No Transcript)
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Shared Challenges Viewing Areas of Educational
Opportunity in the State of Ohio
The following map presents areas of high (dark
colors) and low (light colors) educational
opportunity in the State. (Based on index of
school quality and assessment of barriers to
educational attainment). Note that many rural
and urban communities face similar education
challenges.
Map Prepared by the Kirwan Institute for The Ohio
State Economic Access Initiative
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(No Transcript)
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Cleveland opportunity analysis African American
demographics
Weak market region Clevelands African
American community is primarily concentrated
within lower opportunity neighborhoods In 2000,
79.9 of the Cleveland regions African American
households lived in very low or low opportunity
neighborhoods Only 8.3 of African American
households were found in high or very high
opportunity neighborhoods
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Neighborhood Conditions and Race A Case Study
Mapping Neighborhood Opportunities African
American Males in Seven Metros

• Education Indicators
• Student poverty rates, test scores, student
  teacher ratios
• Economic Indicators
• Job access, unemployment, job trends
• Neighborhood Quality
• Vacant and abandoned properties, crime rates,
  neighborhood poverty rates

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Washington DC Area Neighborhood Opportunity
Ranking and African American Males
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Los Angeles Area Neighborhood Opportunity Ranking
and African American Males
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New York Area Neighborhood Opportunity Ranking
and African American Males
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Detroit Metro Area Neighborhood Opportunity
Ranking and African American Males
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Findings

• 2 out of 3 African American males in the seven
  metropolitan areas were found in low opportunity
  communities
• Compared to 1 out 5 White males

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Thompson v. HUD Proposed remedy

• KI submitted expert reports in both the liability
  and the remedy phases of the litigation, on
  behalf of plaintiffs
• Used GIS to analyze current conditions of
  segregated public housing (liability phase) and
  frame solutions for desegregation (remedy phase)
  in a regional context

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The Communities of Opportunity Approach in Fair
Housing

• Thompson v. HUD
• Lawsuit filed on behalf of 14,000 African
  American public housing residents in the City of
  Baltimore
• Plaintiffs representatives include the Maryland
  ACLU and NAACP Legal Defense Fund
• In January 2005, US District Court Judge Garbis
  found HUD liable for violating the federal Fair
  Housing Act, for not providing fair housing
  opportunities to Baltimores African American
  public housing residents
• The current remedial phase involves designing a
  court ordered remedy to address HUDs fair
  housing violation

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Conditions in Baltimore

• Subsidized housing opportunities in Baltimore are
  generally clustered in the regions predominately
  African American neighborhoods

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Proposed remedy identifies Communities of
Opportunity

• Used 14 indicators of neighborhood opportunity to
  designate high and low opportunity neighborhoods
  in the region
• Neighborhood Quality/Health
• Poverty, Crime, Vacancy, Property Values,
  Population Trends
• Economic Opportunity
• Proximity to Jobs and Job Changes, Public Transit
• Educational Opportunity
• School Poverty, School Test Scores, Teacher
  Qualifications

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Plaintiffs Proposed Remedy

• Plaintiffs propose providing desegregative
  housing opportunities in the regions high
  opportunity neighborhoods to remedy HUDs fair
  housing violations
• With the goal of providing nearly 7,000
  affordable housing opportunities in high
  opportunity communities to public housing
  residents who volunteer to relocate in ten years
• Aligned with proposals to provide support
  services for residents who volunteer for the
  program

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Other Potential Applications

• Using the opportunity maps and qualitative
  research methods (interviews, community forums)
  to better understand neighborhoods dynamics
• Using data to probe and understand challenges but
  investigating other issues with qualitative
  methods
• Examples examining community leadership, the
  built environment, social networks
• Maps and the internet combining to provide online
  community empowerment tools?

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Additional Resources

• Mapping resources in the Toronto area
• The greater Toronto urban observatory at the
  University of Toronto
• http//www.urbancentre.utoronto.ca/gtuo/
• A base of information to consider opportunity
  mapping in the region?

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Questions or Comments? For More Information
Visit Us On-Linewww.KirwanInstitute.org or
reece.35_at_osu.edu