Title: Introduction to Opportunity Mapping
1Introduction to Opportunity Mapping
- OPPORTUNITY MAPPING WORKSHOP
- Nov. 30, 2007
- Samir Gambhir
- GIS/Demographic Specialist
2Presentation overview
- SECTION I Introduction
- SECTION II Methodology
- SECTION III Data and analysis
- SECTION IV Future possibilities
3Section Iintroduction
4The community of opportunity approach
- Where you live is more important than what you
live in - Housing -- in particular its location -- is the
primary mechanism for accessing opportunity in
our society - Housing location determines
- the quality of schools children attend,
- the quality of public services they receive,
- access to employment and transportation,
- exposure to health risks,
- access to health care, etc.
- For those living in high poverty neighborhoods,
these factors can significantly inhibit life
outcomes
5Opportunity structures
6framework
- The Communities of Opportunity framework is a
model of fair housing and community development - The model is based on the premises that
- Everyone should have fair access to the critical
opportunity structures needed to succeed in life - Affirmatively connecting people to opportunity
creates positive, transformative change in
communities
7The web of opportunity
- Opportunities in our society are geographically
distributed (and often clustered) throughout
metropolitan areas - This creates winner and loser communities or
high and low opportunity communities - Your location within this web of opportunity
plays a decisive role in your life potential and
outcomes - Individual characteristics still matter
- but so does access to opportunity, such as good
schools, health care, child care, and job networks
8Opportunity mapping
- 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
9background (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
10background (contd.)
- Opportunity mapping intended to provide a
comprehensive view of any number of indicators
11background (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
12background
- One of the major applications at Kirwan Institute
was Chicago MSA opportunity classification (in
collaboration with Institute on Race and Poverty,
University of Minnesota
13Section Iimethodology
14Methodology
- Identifying and selecting indicators of
opportunity - Identifying sources of data
- Compiling list of indicators (data matrix)
- Calculating Z scores
- Averaging these scores
15MethodologyIdentifying and Selecting Indicators
of High and Low Opportunity
- Established by input from Kirwan Institute and
direction from the local steering committee - Based on certain factors
- Specific issues or concerns of the region
- Research literature validating the connection
between indicator and opportunity - Central Requirement
- Is there a clear connection between indicator and
opportunity? E.g. Proximity to parks and Health
related opportunity
16MethodologySources of Data
- Federal Organizations
- Census Bureau
- County Business Patterns (ZIP Code Data)
- Housing and Urban Development (HUD)
- Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
- State and Local Governmental Organizations
- Regional planning agencies
- Education boards/school districts
- Transportation agencies
- County Auditors Office
- Other agencies (non-Profit and Private)
- Schoolmatters.org
- DataPlace.org
- ESRI Business Analyst
- Claritas
17MethodologyIndicator 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?
18Methodologyeffect on opportunity
- Examples
- Poverty vs Income
- Vacancy rate vs Home ownership rate
19MethodologyCalculating Z Scores
- Z Score a statistical measure that quantifies
the distance (measured in standard deviations)
between data points and the mean - Z Score (Data point Mean)/ Standard
Deviation - Allows data for a geography (e.g. census tract)
to be measured based on their relative distance
from the average for the entire region - Raw z score performance
- Mean value is always zero z score indicates
distance from the mean - Positive z score is always above the regions
mean, Negative z score is always below the
regions mean - Indicators with negative effect on opportunity
should have all the z scores adjusted to reflect
this phenomena
20MethodologyCalculating Opportunity using Z
Scores
- Final opportunity index for each census tract
is the average of z scores (including adjusted
scores for direction) for all indicators by
category - Census tracts can be ranked
- Opportunity level is determined by sorting a
regions census tract z scores into ordered
categories (very low, low, moderate, high, very
high) - Statistical measure
- Grounded in Social Science research
- Most intuitive but other measures can be used
- Example
- Top 20 can be categorized as very high, bottom
20 - very low
21Methodology Averaging Z scores
- Z score averages assume equal participation of
all variables toward Opportunity Index
calculations - No basis to provide unequal weights
- Issue of weighting should be considered carefully
- Need to have a strong rationale for weighting
- Theoretical support would be helpful
- Arbitrary weighting could skew the results
22Examples of opportunity mapping
23Austin MSA, TX
24New orleans msa, la
25Baltimore msa,md
26Ohioeducationopportunity
27Cleveland msa,oh
28Ongoing opportunity mapping projects
- Atlanta MSA, GA
- State of Massachusetts
- State of Connecticut
29Section Iiidata and analysis
30Data sources
- Census Data
- Non-Census Data
31Census 2000 overview
- Information about 115.9 million housing units and
281.4 million people across the United States - Census 2000 geography, maps and data products are
available - Website www.census.gov
32Geography hierarchy
33Census 2000Short Form and Long Form
Short form
Long form
34Short form
- 100-percent characteristics A limited number of
questions were asked of every person and housing
unit in the United States. Information is
available on - Name
- Hispanic or Latino origin
- Household relationship
- Race
- Gender
- Tenure (whether the home is owned or rented)
- Age
35long form
?
For the U.S. as a whole, about one in six
households received the long-form questionnaire.
36long form (contd.)
- Additional questions were asked of a sample of
persons and housing units. Data are provided on - Population
37long form (contd.)
38Census 2010
- For Census 2010
- No long form questionnaire
- Short form questionnaire only
- To all residents in the U.S.
- Ask the same set of questions
- American Community Survey (ACS) to collect more
detailed information - Will provide data every year rather than every 10
years - Sent to a small percentage of population on a
rotating basis - No household will receive the survey more often
than once every five years - It might take at least five years, and some data
aggregation, to get Census tract or smaller
geography level data
39Available short form data
- 100 data or short-form information
- Summary File 1
- Counts for detailed race, Hispanic or Latino
groups, and American Indian/Alaska Native tribes - Tables repeat for major race groups alone, two or
more races, Hispanic or Latino, White not
Hispanic or Latino - Geography block, census tract
- Summary File 2
- 36 Population tables at census tract (PCT) level
- 11 Housing tables (HCT) at census tract (HCT)
40Available long form data
- Sample data or long-form information
- Summary File 3
- 813 tables of data
- Counts and cross tabulations of sample items
(income, occupation, education, rent and value,
vehicles available) - Lowest level of geography block group
- Summary File 4
- Tables repeated by race, Hispanic/ Latino, and
American Indian and Alaska Native categories, and
ancestry 336 categories in all.
41Census basedmaps
- Fairly simple in calculations
- Easy to display
- Easy readability for the audience
42Census data issues
- Historical data hard to get
- Inconsistent categories
- Block group and census tract boundaries are
regularly updated - Private data providers such as GeoLytics provide
historical census data normalized to 2000
geographies - Inconsistency in data categories are minimized
but still exist
43Non-census data
- Data not available at census is gathered from
other sources - Good news!! It is available
- Bad news!! It might not be available at the
geography of analysis (census tracts) - Data needs to be manipulated to represent census
tracts
44Non-census dataExampleS
- School data
- Student poverty, test scores and teacher
experience data might be available at
school/District/County/State level - Transit data
- Transit route data might be available with the
local Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) - Bus-stops or train stations might be available as
a point theme - Environmental data
- Toxic sites and toxic release data available at
EPA as point data - Parks and open spaces are available as shapefiles
- Public health
- Hospital locations might be available
- Main issue How to represent this data at census
tract level
45Spatial techniques
- Mapping software offers many techniques for data
manipulation. Some of these methods used in our
analysis are - Interpolation
- Areal Interpolation
- Buffering
46Interpolation
- Technique to predict value at unknown locations
based on values at known locations - Example Weather data
- Areal interpolation - Transferring data from one
geography to another based on the proportion of
area overlapping the target area - Data aggregation
- Example - Transferring jobs data at zip code
level to census tracts
47buffering
- Buffering
- Creating a buffer of a specified radius around
our data point - Buffer distance decision should be research or
knowledge based - Captures proximity of events such as grocery
stores, jobs etc.
48Data issues and considerations
- Missing data
- Input data average
- Z score as zero
- Macro level data
- Jurisdictions or school districts
- When do we use ratio
- Grocery stores
- Jobs
49Section Ivfuture possibilities
50Future possibilities
- Web-based mapping
- Currently used mainly to display information
- Provides tools to zoom to scale, identify and
some analysis - Can be developed to exchange live information
- Google mash-up
- http//housingmaps.com
- http//wayfaring.com
- http//walkscore.com
- Mapping blogs
- Could residents go on-line and show where
impediments to opportunity are in their
neighborhood, or share their experiences? - Semantic mapping
- Intelligence based Internet mapping