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Opportunity & Asset Mapping Webinar

Opportunity Mapping Technical Assistance WebinarSupported though the Sustainable Communities Technical Assistance Program Provided by the U.S. Department of Housing & Urban Development. Additional support provided by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation & the Ford Foundations Metropolitan Opportunity ProgramPresented to the Chittenden County Regional Planning DepartmentFebruary 21st 2012Jason ReeceDirector of ResearchThe Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race & EthnicityThe Ohio State UniversitySocial Equity Technical Assistance Provided in Partnership with PolicyLink & the Program for Environmental & Regional EquityReece.35@osu.edu

1Opportunity

2Biologists often talk about the ecology of an organism: the tallest oak in the forest is the tallest not just because it grew from the hardies acorn; it is the tallest also because no other trees blocked its sunlight, the soil around it was deep and rich, no rabbit chewed through its bark as a sapling, and no lumberjack cut it down before it matured. We all know that successful people come from hardy seeds. But do we know enough about the sunlight that warmed them, the soil in which they put down roots, and the rabbits and lumberjacks they were lucky enough to avoid?Malcolm Gladwell Outliers2

Community & Access to Opportunity: Profound Impacts on Human Development, Health & Well Being3

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Community & Health4Development of Our Opportunity Community Model and Opportunity Mapping5Previous Opportunity Mapping ProjectsChicago (2004) (Leadership Council for Metropolitan Open Communities)Baltimore, MD (2005) (Thompson v. HUD MD ACLU)New Orleans (2005)Cleveland (2006) (Presidents Council of Cleveland)Austin, TX (2007) (Green Doors)African American Male Study (six region study) (2007) (W.K. Kellogg Foundation)Atlanta, Chicago, Detroit, Houston, Los Angeles, New YorkDetroit, MI (2008) (MI Roundtable)Massachusetts (2009) MA Law Reform InstituteConnecticut (2009) CT Fair Housing CenterNew Orleans (2009) (Greater New Orleans Fair Housing Center)

Miami, Jacksonville, Orlando and Tampa Bay, FL (2009) (Miami Workers Centers)State of Ohio (2010) State of Black Ohio Research InitiativeSeattle, WA (2010) (Northwest Justice Project)Portland, OR (2010) (Urban League)California (Multiple Sites) (2010) (The California Endowment)Jacksonville, FL (2011) (The Jacksonville Childrens Commission)San Francisco Bay Region (2011)Merced County, CA (2011) (The California Endowment)Gulf Coast of Mississippi (2011) (Gulf Regional Planning Commission)Galveston, TX (2011)Columbus, OH (2011) (Columbus Community Development Collaborative)Greater New Orleans (Greater New Orleans Foundation)

6Why use mapping to support community advocacy?Internal Capacity BuildingCreating a common space for dialogue and group learningTo provide an entry point for starting consensus building or collaborative discussions among diverse stakeholdersDeveloping collective narratives about placeTo target resources and build internal capacityTo provide a local resource to identify areas of greatest need in communities and assess gaps where need is not being met by on-going advocacy efforts, local initiatives, investments or policy initiatives. To help build local organizational capacity in understanding opportunity challenges and needs

7Why use mapping to support community advocacy?External Capacity BuildingRaising awareness (building external capacity)To raise attention and awarenessTo identify solutions to remedy barriers to opportunityTo call for systems change from various stakeholders

8ImpactFrom an institutional perspective, involvement with this project has required us as an organization to reach out to potential partners we have not interacted with before. We have developed relationships with organizations working on issues such as smart growth, health disparities and education which have helped to inform and direct our fair housing work.

-Erin Boggs, Deputy Director, Connecticut Fair Housing Center

We have program outcome data on every program we fund, but we have never had a way to show impact upon a population or neighborhood. Opportunity mapping is a powerful tool that demonstrates the value of our work in a graphic and easy to understand way.our city budget continues to shrink but as we go forward well be working on ways to refocus some of our investments. -Linda Lanier, Executive Director/CEO, Jacksonville Childrens Commission

99ImpactWithin legal services, the mapping data is the foundation for a new place-based advocacy that seeks to bring intensive and comprehensive legal resources and social services to change outcomes in several low-opportunity zip codes or neighborhoods. -Fran Fajana, Director of the Race Equity Project, Massachusetts Law Reform Institute

The story of how our maps were created resembles the childrens story Stone Soup, in which a hungry community started out with nothing but a pot of water with stones and ended up with a rich soup that fed everyone because each person contributed something. Creating these maps was a community building experience that promises to have benefits that go beyond the maps themselves. Andree Tremoulet, Ph.D. Housing Services Specialist, Washington County, OR, Department of Community Development

1010Our DisclaimersWe must use census geographies to represent neighborhoods or communities (these are not always accurate representations)

The opportunity index shows the relative distribution of how places along the coast rank in comparison to each other on a number of data based indicators

The map and the index only represents what the indicators utilized and data collected presents interpretation and use of the map must be a locally driven activityData cannot capture everything, but we use as much data as we can gather to represent conditions

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13FieldMeanstandard deviationPoverty rate 0.13 0.089882842Unemployment rate 0.06 0.046389502Households public assistance % 0.04 0.035978555Owner-occupied units %_2 0.67 0.174428203Avg commute time 25.28 5.569263641Assoc deg 0.29 0.13 EducationRaMP Math Proficiency Total (%)68.9460420.5361RaMP RaMP Reading Proficiency Total (%)72.3677492.139206Fr_Red_lunch0.3810570.239793086Employment0.4262457.798211

14Opportunity Mapping & SCIThe U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has developed a national opportunity index, measuring conditions along the Gulf Coast (its mandatory to use an opportunity index in sustainable communities planning activities)

We have been working with the local consortiums in several SCI regions to develop a locally created opportunity index, to better represent the local input, to generate a more accurate opportunity map and to realize capacity building and engagement benefits from the process

Opportunity to utilize HUD data with other local data to create a robust opportunity map

1515How do you map opportunity?(Technical Perspective)Step 1: Selecting indicatorsMultiple indicators clustered around particular opportunity topics (education, economy, health and safety etc.)Step 2: Locating data Step 3: Analyzing the data and created a composite map for each opportunity topicStep 4: Combining all the topical maps to create a final opportunity map1616

Identifying and Selecting Indicators of High and Low OpportunityEstablished by input from Kirwan Institute and direction from the local steering committeeBased on certain factorsSpecific issues or concerns of the regionResearch literature validating the connection between indicator and opportunityCentral Requirement:Is there a clear connection between indicator and opportunity? E.g. Proximity to parks and Health related opportunity 17Mapping Communities of Opportunity: Methods and Indicators18How do you map opportunity? Data representing community conditions was gathered for neighborhood (census tracts) across the regionData for all indicators of community conditions was aggregated to the census tract level and analyzed to create a comprehensive opportunity index for the census tracts (neighborhoods) throughout the regionSignificant geoprocessing involvedGeographic transformationNo weighting of variables (although indicators are analyzed in three separate categories and these are averaged)The opportunity index is then mapped and census tracts are broken into quintiles based on their opportunity scoreVery Low, Low, Moderate, High, Very High1/5 of tracts clustered into each category based on final opportunity score

18Methodology:Calculating Z ScoresZ Score a statistical measure that quantifies the distance (measured in standard deviations) between data points and the meanZ Score = (Data point Mean)/ Standard DeviationAllows data for a geography (e.g. census tract) to be measured based on their relative distance from the average for the entire regionRaw z score performanceMean value is always zero z score indicates distance from the meanPositive z score is always above the regions mean, Negative z score is always below the regions meanIndicators with negative effect on opportunity should have all the z scores adjusted to reflect this phenomena19Methodology:Calculating Opportunity using Z ScoresFinal opportunity index for each census tract is the average of z scores (including adjusted scores for direction) for all indicators by categoryCensus tracts can be rankedOpportunity level is determined by sorting a regions census tract z scores into ordered categories (very low, low, moderate, high, very high)Statistical measureGrounded in Social Science researchMost intuitive but other measures can be usedExampleTop 20% can be categorized as very high, bottom 20% - very low20Methodology: Averaging Z scoresZ score averages assume equal participation of all variables toward Opportunity Index calculationsNo basis to provide unequal weightsIssue of weighting should be considered carefullyNeed to have a strong rationale for weightingTheoretical support would be helpfulArbitrary weighting could skew the results

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Regional Employment Landscape

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23Opportunity Index & Indicators(Example from an SCI project)24Comprehensive Opportunity Index24Opportunity Indicators and Development of the Opportunity MapComprehensive Opportunity Map: Representing Five Sub-Index Maps(And 22+ Individual Indicators)

25Creating the Composite Opportunity Map26

26Domains of Child Well-Being (Simplified for this Analysis)For our analysis:Neighborhood indicators covers the economic security domain.Social Development and Problem Behavior not covered directly, but crime rates, non-promotion rate or teen birth could cover this, albeit partly.

27Child Well-Being Indicators

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Comprehensive Opportunity MapInsert Map A-1Comment: A clear spatial division eastern vs. western

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Comprehensive Opportunity Map and RaceInsert Map A-2Comment: Spatial isolation of children of color concentrated in low-opportunity areas.

30Outcomes: Engagement, Education & Communication

31How do you map opportunity?(Process Perspective)A hybrid of data driven analysis and mapping combined with extensive community and stakeholder engagementVarious ways to engage stakeholders and the publicDriven by a locally led advisory group (who can act as data liaisons, assist in ground truthing maps, and in designing analysis)Stakeholder or community participatory forumsOutreach to media and communicationsUse of online interactive mapping toolsWe also sometimes supplement the analysis with asset mapping and trend analysis (understanding shifts in opportunity in the regional landscape)Working with SCI consortiums we have prepared specialized indicators which have emerged out of committee work related to the sustainability planning process

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Linking Mapping, Data & Capacity Building to Understand and Support Food Security in Mississippi33Linking Mapping, Data & Capacity Building to Understand and Support Food Security in Mississippi34

34Methodology Issues/Concerns for this EffortIndicator selectionand relevance to your community (buy in from consortium on indicators used)Geographic scale (slightly different approach for more rural communities)Process is critical engagement and local buy inPainful geographies!Schools one of the most important domains to analyze but always difficult to assessWorking with upcoming HUD data integrating your work with HUD analysisSupplement data (consider participatory mapping and other subtopic analysis which can work its way back into the map)35Considerations in Rural AreasNeed to go deeper in respect to units of geographic analysisBlock groups or blocksIndicators and analysis should reflect the unique rural characteristics of the communityMore data challenges with ACS and margins of error with traditional census dataSmaller geographies allow the possibility to do creative and important participatory work and local data collection3636Want to Learn More?Resources & Reference MaterialsMapping for Social JusticeThe Kirwan Institute Study: Utilizing GIS to Support Advocacy and Social Justice More on Opportunity MappingThe Kirwan Institute ReportsCommunities of Opportunity: A Framework for an Equitable & Sustainable FutureThe Geography of Opportunity: A Review of Opportunity Mapping Research InitiativesAll Available on-line at: kirwaninstitute.org37

37Want to Learn More?Resources & Reference MaterialsMapping & Advocacy Two recent articles from Clearinghouse ReviewJason Reece and Eric Schultheis. Povertys Place: The Use of Geographic Information Systems in Poverty Advocacy. Clearinghouse Review Journal of Poverty Law and Policy. January-February 2009. Maya Roy and Jason Reece. Povertys Place Revisited: Mapping for Justice & Democratizing Data to Combat Poverty. Clearinghouse Review Journal of Poverty Law and Policy. July/August 2010. To access, visit Clearinghouse Review at:www.povertylaw.org/clearinghouse-review38

38Neighborhood indicatorsEducation and school related indicatorsHealth and environmental indicators

Neighborhood poverty rate Population on public assistance Unemployment rate Share of households headed by single parentHome ownership rate Housing vacancy rates Foreclosure rateAdult educational attainmentCrime ratesFree and reduced price lunch studentsTeacher qualification Teacher experienceStudent/Teacher ratio Test results (Math and Reading)Non-promotion rateChildren with diabetes, asthma, cancerLow birth weight babies Teen birthsAccess to healthcare facilities Availability of healthcare professional Access to affordable food Exposure to toxic wasteAccess to parks and open spaces