Mapping inequality: How U.S. cities are divided by income

Desdemona Despair

By Tanvi Misra
27 February 2018

(CityLab) – In Philly’s Center City live its richest residents—those who can pay the premium for that walkable, amenity-rich, green neighborhood. But just across the river, blocks away from the lush, expanding campuses of the University of Pennsylvania and Drexel University, the visual landscape of the city changes: Pawn shops, fast food eateries, boarded-up store fronts, and dilapidated houses. Only a few areas in West Philadelphia have become more prosperous (and whiter). The rest continue to suffer concentrated poverty and decline.

This is not just a Philadelphia story. To visualize the landscape of economic inequality in U.S. cities, the mapping whizzes at ESRI have created a captivating story map with multiple layers. It presents America’s stark income disparities—and in the few places where it exists, income diversity.

Let’s zoom in further on Philadelphia to understand ESRI’s three metrics. The first type of map divides census tracts into four differently colored categories based on the income brackets of the “predominant”—or most most numerous—household type.

The clusters of orange dots show the tracts where the most common household type makes below $25,000; the pink ones show where households in the $25,000 to $50,000 range comprise the largest group; the purple: between $50,000 and $100,000; and the blue ones are where rich households that earn over $100,000 live. Note: The larger the dot, the more populous the tract it is marking; and the brighter it is, the higher the concentration of the “predominant” income group.

In Philly, you can see that blue spots burn bright in the Center City area, in particular. […]

ESRI has a handful of other cities on the tab that all have their own distinct patterns. Below is the first type of map showing Los Angeles, which is majority residents of color, but still starkly divided by income. Lower-income households that make below $25,000 (in orange) are clumped together in areas including downtown and the San Fernando and San Bernardino Valleys. [more]

How Cities Are Divided By Income, Mapped