Assessing Opportunities for Equity
Using spatial models to identify high-opportunity areas for intervention
The many funding mechanisms in place to address sustainability goals are NOT ENOUGH to achieve impact.
We need a new approach that’s people-centered, data-driven and inclusive.
Enter: Geodesign and Collective Impact.
These two concepts have operated independently for decades. Yet, together they can do so much more.
By combining Geodesign and Collective Impact, we can direct intervention through data, gathered from partners within the collective and analyzed through Geodesign, so investments curate real results.
OUR PROJECT:
Our team utilized the Design Thinking framework to power a continuous cycle of observing, reflecting and making.
This project relies on a goal-oriented mapping strategy to identify social impact opportunities within three impact areas:
the Built Environment,
the Economy, and
Community Health & Empowerment
This framework was tailored to our study area of Gainesville, FL but could be adapted for future iterations with other geographies and scales.
To start the process we listed and described what we were trying to achieve within each impact area, our goals, and how we hoped to achieve it, the objectives. We then developed clear statements that reflect the desired outcome.
Our Goals and Objectives were the basis for gathering data and creating models which best represented the conditions on the ground.
While these models stand alone to communicate a single objective, when combined, they tell the story of opportunity as a whole.
Thus, the next step was to determine weights for combining these models into a singular map.
Objectives are weighted based on how influential each objective is to achieving its associated goal.
The goals are then weighted by the relative importance between them, within their impact area.
Finally, each of the impact areas is weighted for a final suitability map.
OUR MODELS
This model was created to identify barriers to housing mobility based on the following characteristics:
- Median Household Income
- Job Gravity
- Housing Costs (as a portion of annual income)
- Transportation Costs (as a portion of annual income)
"Because of rising housing costs and stagnant wages, slightly more than half of all poor renting families in the country spend more than 50 percent of their income on housing costs"
- Matthew Desmond
This model identified food deserts in Alachua county.
- Locations of grocery stores
- More importance given to healthy grocery stores
- Measured distance to people's homes
"Consequences of long-term constrained access to healthy foods is one of the main reasons that ethnic minorities and low-income populations suffer from statistically higher rates of diet-related conditions than the general population."
-Food Empowerment Project
This model looked at access to financial resources within Alachua county.
- Distance to banks & Credit Unions
- Total savings per household
Red/orange areas show high need to increase access to financial resources.
THESE MODELS ARE COMPLEX
Opportunities for intervention and achieving equity are an agglomeration of a lot of moving parts.
BUT THROUGH GEODESIGN & COLLECTIVE IMPACT,
We can all work together to achieve more.
