Why we love it

See a city through the eyes of the people who live in its neighborhoods. We love how this map shows a neighborhood’s proximity to quality schools. It adds a second dimension of median home value to help identify areas with affordable housing and access to quality schools. Those opportunities are represented by small, green diamond symbols. In a clear way, this map tells the interrelated stories of income and access to education. It also provides a nationwide dataset of indexes on School Proficiency, Job Proximity, Transportation Cost, Market Labor, and Median Home Value.

Why it works

This map works because it uses color and symbol size to reveal the sometimes subtle, sometimes not so subtle, differences in neighborhoods. Red diamonds represent a low School Proficiency Index while green diamonds represent high. Diamond sizes signify Median Home Value for an area—an indication of how financially feasible it may be to move into that neighborhood. Educational bargains are found in neighborhoods with small, green diamonds as these are more affordable and have access to better schools. You can touch any neighborhood to see additional HUD Opportunity indexes.

Important steps

  • Download data and combine into a single layer

    View the open data available on the HUD eGIS Open Data site. Explore that data in ArcGIS. Then download the datasets from HUD and combine into a single layer so that an application can query all the relevant data from one source.
    HUD-eGIS Open Data Storefront

  • Join layers and publish with all indexes

    Join the layers using the analysis tools and publish the new map layer with all indexes included in the nationwide dataset at the geography level of your choosing (here we use Census tracts).
    Quick lesson in creating a map

  • Use smart mapping to organize the data

    Create a new web map with the data. Symbolize the data in the web map using smart mapping to showcase the attributes that are important. Configure the pop-up window to incorporate more data in a nice format.
    6 easy ways to improve your maps

  • Create a map to meet the user’s need

    Create a web mapping application from the web map and configure it to the end-user’s need. Use ArcGIS Web AppBuilder to create a custom application for spreading this information.

    ArcGIS Web AppBuilder

Requirements

  • Data and software

    The HUD eGIS Open Data site hosts many Open Opportunity Datasets. Anyone can use open data sites to search by topic or location, download data in multiple formats, and view data on an interactive map and in a table. Software used: ArcGIS Pro, ArcGIS Online.
    Open Opportunity Data

  • Analysis

    Use smart mapping to better understand the data, then set its symbols to highlight the interesting part. View the distribution of the first variable, then the second. Set symbology for color and size, calling attention to the need for lower-cost access to quality education.

  • Time

    It took 30 minutes to collect the layers and join them into one finalized dataset. It took one hour to explore the data, finalize symbols, and configure the custom pop-up with text and a bar chart. The Web AppBuilder application took 10 minutes with no custom code to write.

Tips and tricks

  • Look at the relationship between the data

    Choose to investigate the relationship between two attributes in the data: school proficiency index and median home value. Opportunity is found where there is a high school proficiency index and low-to-moderate home values.

  • Set color depth after determining average values

    Use the histogram in the Styling panel of the Map Viewer to see how the school proficiency index varies by neighborhood and determine the average value. Set the values at which dark green or dark red colors are applied in full.
    Make better size and color maps

  • Title Required 50 characters max: Set diamond size based on home value

    Use the histogram in the Styling panel of the Map Viewer to see home value variation by neighborhood and average home value. Set the values at which large and small symbols are applied with everything proportionally sized in between.

Resources

Headshot of Patrick O'Brien, geographer

Map Author

Patrick O’Brien

Patrick, a lifetime geographer, has been a Solution Engineer at Esri since 2015. Undergrad at Salisbury University and graduate school at University of Maryland, College Park, Patrick has tried to map just about everything.

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