Characteristics of children’s neighborhood environments

diversitydatakids.org has developed comprehensive new data on neighborhood environments of children for various socioeconomic, housing and demographic indicators
Published: 07.18.2016 Updated: 10.22.2019

There is growing evidence on the importance of neighborhood environments for children’s wellbeing and life chances.  Therefore, understanding the differences in the quality of children’s neighborhoods is a critical step in addressing inequities in child outcomes and opportunities.  

diversitydatakids.org has developed comprehensive new data on neighborhood environments of children by race/ethnicity, age and poverty status for 19 socioeconomic, housing and demographic indicators.   The data are available for metropolitan areas and the 100 largest cities.

To produce Ranking Reports for these indicators and to see indicator definitions go here, choose Location Type “Metro Areas” or “Large Cities”, and select the "Neighborhood Characteristics of Children" or "Neighborhood Characteristics of Young Children" subcategory (within the "Neighborhoods" category).  To produce Maps, go here and follow the same selection steps as with the Ranking Reports.

Use the visualization tool below to compare the neighborhood environments of children by race/ethnicity, age, and poverty status for 19 socioeconomic, housing, and demographic indicators in the 100 largest metropolitan areas and cities.

The indicators are “exposure indices” and show the characteristics of the neighborhood where the average or typical child of the specified race/ethnicity, age, and poverty status lives, in any of the 100 largest cities or metro areas.  For example, when selecting the Neighborhood Characteristic of “Poverty” for the City of Chicago and selecting Race/Ethnicity of “Hispanic”, Age Group of “<18” and Poverty Status of “All”, you will see that the average Hispanic child under age 18 in Chicago lived in a neighborhood (defined as a census tract) with a poverty rate of 23%.