INTERACTIVE MAP: Median income of every neighborhood in Philadelphia

**phillymapper** · 12-31-2012, 05:16 PM

Here's something that I bet native and soon-to-be Philly folks can get a lot of use from.

It's a website called RichBlocksPoorBlocks.com. You enter an address, city, and/or state, then you see a color-coded map of the location you selected. You can click each neighborhood for more detail.

Here are some example pics so you get the idea. It's really helpful to see where the blighted and non-blighted areas are.

**raider.adam** · 12-31-2012, 05:31 PM

Anyone know what's with those two census tracts in Center City?

**annie** · 12-31-2012, 06:43 PM

Originally Posted by raider.adam

Anyone know what's with those two census tracts in Center City?

The western one includes the Sydney Hillman Apartments which are Section 8. It's a pretty big building and not a lot of that tract is residential so I could see it skewing things. I would guess the same for the other one being mostly Jefferson, Wills Eye and Pennsy but I don't know what building exactly.

**annie** · 12-31-2012, 06:53 PM

Originally Posted by phillymapper

It's really helpful to see where the blighted and non-blighted areas are.

No actually. Lower income does not equal blighted. For starters, some really beautiful parts of Powelton are red because large numbers of students live there.

**raider.adam** · 12-31-2012, 06:57 PM

Originally Posted by annie

No actually. Lower income does not equal blighted. For starters, some really beautiful parts of Powelton are red because large numbers of students live there.

Correct. As the two tracts I pointed out, I doubt they are blighted. Also, poor doesn't have to mean blighted.

**annie** · 12-31-2012, 07:22 PM

Originally Posted by raider.adam

Correct. As the two tracts I pointed out, I doubt they are blighted. Also, poor doesn't have to mean blighted.

Heh, if the goal of this is to help people unfamiliar with Philly understand the city even less, then this map is helpful indeed.

**BarryG** · 12-31-2012, 07:59 PM

I wonder if most cities have borders as stark as City Line and Cheltenham Ave?

**Titus** · 01-01-2013, 10:36 AM

Interesting, but odd seeing as how the stadiums appear to be among the richest neighborhoods in the city.

**seand** · 01-01-2013, 11:18 AM

Originally Posted by Titus

Interesting, but odd seeing as how the stadiums appear to be among the richest neighborhoods in the city.

More like newer construction with very little poor people, which when viewed that way does indeed match the economic demographics of some our surrounding suburbs that are a similar shade of green. Its not that its rich but that its on average lacking poor people.

**seand** · 01-01-2013, 11:21 AM

Looking as West Philly along Baltimore, it is interesting how it reflects that indeed further west when undergads give way to homeowners, average income does indeed go up and that west of 52nd south of Spruce, north of Baltimore is indeed more middle class than its neighbors to the north and south which squares with my perception of the neighborhood as well.

**phillymapper** · 01-01-2013, 01:18 PM

Originally Posted by annie

No actually. Lower income does not equal blighted. For starters, some really beautiful parts of Powelton are red because large numbers of students live there.

Ah, that is a good point. My mistake.

**phillymapper** · 01-03-2013, 09:22 AM

I wonder how this map would look with the bus and SEPTA lines superimposed on it...

**OffenseTaken** · 01-03-2013, 02:05 PM

Originally Posted by BarryG

I wonder if most cities have borders as stark as City Line and Cheltenham Ave?

I can't find any other big city in America whose boundaries are as easy to trace this way. Even the notoriously troubled parts of eastern Delaware County that border the city are still fairly discernable. Only in the Far Northeast do things get fuzzy.

That's interesting, and quite sad.

**BarryG** · 01-03-2013, 02:25 PM

Originally Posted by OffenseTaken

I can't find any other big city in America whose boundaries are as easy to trace this way. Even the notoriously troubled parts of eastern Delaware County that border the city are still fairly discernable. Only in the Far Northeast do things get fuzzy.

That's interesting, and quite sad.

Also blurry around the Cedarbrook part of Cheltenham.

**Naveen** · 01-03-2013, 02:36 PM

Originally Posted by OffenseTaken

I can't find any other big city in America whose boundaries are as easy to trace this way. Even the notoriously troubled parts of eastern Delaware County that border the city are still fairly discernable. Only in the Far Northeast do things get fuzzy.

That's interesting, and quite sad.

The Northwest is pretty contiguous economically at the edge with MontoCo. That is, the part with Chestnut Hill and Roxborough/Andorra below.

As to other cities, south Boston, at least Suffolk County vs. it's surroundings, seems pretty starkly divided.

**OffenseTaken** · 01-03-2013, 04:09 PM

Originally Posted by BarryG

Also blurry around the Cedarbrook part of Cheltenham.

Originally Posted by Naveen

The Northwest is pretty contiguous economically at the edge with MontoCo. That is, the part with Chestnut Hill and Roxborough/Andorra below.

As to other cities, south Boston, at least Suffolk County vs. it's surroundings, seems pretty starkly divided.

The fact that the few anomalies are so easy to spot underscores just how strong the correlation generally is between poverty and what side of the city border you live on. Somebody who has no idea where the city limits are could draw an awfully close approximation with this map.

Boston does come close. The only real rivals to Philadelphia I can find are Cincinnati and the even more unenviable Buffalo:

It's tempting to blame the usual suspects of crime and the ineptitude of city government for this, and those are certainly factors. However, I imagine it also illustrates how much easier it is for small bedroom communities to control settlement patterns, and therefore manipulate what kinds of people live within their borders.

**raider.adam** · 01-03-2013, 04:17 PM

Check out Louisville.

**Sharkfood** · 01-03-2013, 04:58 PM

What was interesting to me was how a heavy student population appears to drag down average household income. The census tract around
40th & Spruce had an average household income of $9,000, which is lower than the worst parts of the Badlands in North Philadelphia.

**raider.adam** · 01-03-2013, 05:34 PM

Originally Posted by Sharkfood

What was interesting to me was how a heavy student population appears to drag down average household income. The census tract around
40th & Spruce had an average household income of $9,000, which is lower than the worst parts of the Badlands in North Philadelphia.

Well, I am guessing that is pretty accurate. how many students are working and if so, significantly above minimum wage?

**OffenseTaken** · 01-03-2013, 05:40 PM

Originally Posted by raider.adam

Check out Louisville.

It's amazing how much the poor in Louisville are "quarantined" within the part of town that's been unofficially set aside for them. If you drove into the city from here, and stayed east of downtown and south of Churchill Downs, you could be there for years and it would seem like a miraculously slum-free city (and a remarkably pretty one, I might add).

This is true of a lot of Midwestern and Southern cities, but Louisville's case might be the most pronounced.

Originally Posted by Sharkfood

What was interesting to me was how a heavy student population appears to drag down average household income. The census tract around
40th & Spruce had an average household income of $9,000, which is lower than the worst parts of the Badlands in North Philadelphia.

That's not surprising. Most undergrads live on debt these days, with maybe a low-wage summer job (like, $4-5K per annum) to supplement it. Grad and professional students tend to live on a mix of loans, fellowships (which don't get counted as income), and crappy stipends.

Poor people in North Philadelphia generally don't have the option of paying the rent by borrowing money (and God help them if they do). More to the point, their income probably won't be going up severalfold within the next four years, as it will be for even low-earning recent grads.