Income Inequality in Cities - Using ESRI StoryMap

This image is from an ESRI Storymap titled "Wealth Divides" that you can find at this link.

This demonstrates a growing ability to use story maps to build a greater understanding of how some places are blessed with great wealth while others are less fortunate due to great poverty.

I'll reach out to ESRI, but the next layer of information on maps like this should be borrowed from my own  history of building map overlays that show locations of non-school tutor and/or mentoring programs in different neighborhoods, as part of a strategy intended to draw resources to existing programs while helping new programs start where few or none exist.

Here's a blog article that illustrates how I've been trying to use maps. Imagine what might result if teams of students, volunteers and map-makers were duplicating the Tutor/Mentor Connection's 4-part strategy, and were producing map stories using current StoryMap tools, to draw attention to inequality, violence and other indicators of need, and were drawing resources to organizations working to reduce those inequalities.

That could be happening in every part of the world if a few leaders would step forward to make it happen.

11/30/16 update: Here's a New York Times story about immigration, that uses maps and animation to tell the story in a visual way.

12/20/16 update: Here's another ESRI storymap, this time telling the story of the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL).

1/11/17 update: Story map showing 10 most segregated cities in the US

6/28/17 update:  See how Crain's Chicago Business uses this Wealth Divides map in it's own analysis. click here

2/28/18 update:  How Cities are Divided By Income, Mapped - CITYLAB story. click here
View the ESRI Mapping Incomes story-map - click here

4/8/2018 update: Mapping Inequality: Redlining in New Deal America - this collection of Home Owners Loan Corporation (HOLA) maps from the 1920s and 1930s serve as "as critical evidence in countless urban studies in the fields of history, sociology, economics, and law. Indeed, more than a half-century of research has shown housing to be for the twentieth century what slavery was to the antebellum period, namely the broad foundation of both American prosperity and racial inequality."

4/17/2018 update:  Public Housing Plays Huge Role in Racial Segregation and Inequality-- but not in the way most people think.  Article in Business Insider - click here

4/20/2018 update: US News & World Report article - Segregation's Legacy - click here

4/24/2018 update: Segregation incarnated in brick and mortar. See maps in this April 2018 article on The Hechinger Report. 

5/3/2018 update: "Segregation Map: America is More Diverse than Ever, but still Segregated" - Washington Post article - click here

5/10/2018 update: "To Succeed Older Cities Must Overcome Their Stark Color Lines." Brookings edu article - click here

5/16/2018  update:  Metropolitan Planning Council site offers plan for addressing costs of segregation in the Chicago region. "Title: Our Equitable Future: A Roadmap for the Chicago Region". click here

5/29/2018 update:  Connecticut has more concentrated poverty (and wealth) than most metros. see 2015 article. These are findings from a DataHaven study

6/1/2018  update: The End of the American Dream? Inequality and Segregation in US Cities. Alessandra Fogli, senior economist and assistant director in the research department at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis leads a discussion about segregation and inequality across U.S. cities and their consequences on educational outcomes of future generations. see video

12/11/2018 update:  2018 County Health Map - Key Findings - click here  This report is a resource that can be used by leaders from across the USA.

2/20/2019 update: American segregation, mapped at day and night. This site includes animated maps that show segregation patterns while at work, and while at home. Unique way to view this. click here

2/25/2020 update:  Where Democrats and Republicans live in your city.  This article includes maps that show political separation in cities across the USA, as well as racial segregation.  click here

9/21/2020 update:  Redlining and neighborhood health - click here

9/23/2020 update:  from Brookings.edu: Six maps that reveal America's expanding racial diversity. - click here

11/23/2021  update: The Ever-Growing Gap: Failing to Address the Status Quo Will Drive the Racial Wealth Divide for Centuries to Come - Institute for  Policy Studies report - click here   

CPS School Librarians - cut from the budget

This map shows Chicago public schools with librarians and those without.  It's from this article which was written by Anne Li and posted in the South Side Weekly.

I've been using maps for many years to show areas where kids need extra help, such as non-school tutor and mentor programs, due to living in areas of high poverty.  This is just one more example of how kids in affluent areas get greater support and learning opportunities than kids in high poverty, highly segregated areas.

Browse through other articles on this MappingforJustice blog site and see more maps telling this story.

Create your own map story and or blog article and help draw attention to this problem.

Using data maps to tell stories

This is a screen shot showing an Opportunity Youth map on Policy Link's National Equity Atlas data platform.  I have been listening to webinars for the past year, in which Policy Link shows features on its site and explains how to make your own map.  The archive of today's webinar is here and slides are here. 

While this map view shows the entire United States, the next image shows a close up view of Phoenix.  The Equity Atlas has data for the 150 largest cities, so a similar map could be created for Chicago, Dallas, NYC, Detroit, etc.

As I watched the webinar my primary concern was "Where is the talent in a city who can create map stories out of this data?" I'd add, "Is there a marketing/PR team, focused on creating on-going map stories that reach people with enough frequency that they begin to respond to what the maps are showing.

Shortly after watching the PolicyLink webinar, I came across this message in my Twitter feed:

Learning about suburban hunger in our area! Check out these maps! West Chester HEAL MAPPS Project https://t.co/ankIP9aB4O #storymap

— Margy Conditt (@margyconditt) November 2, 2016

The graphic at the left is just one page out of many in this presentation, that helps people in this suburban community better understand a problem that only has a direct affect on a a small percent of the population, but has an indirect impact on the entire community.

I present these two different uses of maps to illustrate the type of data that is available to leaders and community advocates in Chicago and other places, as well as the ways data can be turned into stories.

If you browse past articles on this blog, and the Tutor/Mentor blog, you'll see that I have been creating maps for nearly 20 years, with the goal that people use them to fill poverty neighborhoods of Chicago with high quality, non-school tutoring, mentoring and learning programs, along with other supports, that enable more kids living in these areas to move safely through school and into jobs and adult roles.

I created this concept map to point to many other data mapping platforms that can be used to create story maps. Here's the link.

For this to happen, many people need to be creating story maps, and many others need to be sharing them regularly.  That will require leadership from business, universities, foundations and political leaders.

If I can help you think this through, lets connect.