These census tracts had statistically significant high-hardship clustering in both 2013 and 2019. The pattern is not random: a Global Moran’s I of 0.684 confirms that hardship is spatially concentrated, not scattered. Tracts in this category share infrastructure deficits, limited employment access, and concentrated poverty that reinforce one another across neighborhood boundaries.

Implication: Individual-level interventions alone are unlikely to move the needle. Place-based, multi-sector investment is required.

These tracts were not significant hardship clusters in 2013 but became statistically significant by 2019, representing the spatial expansion of hardship beyond historically distressed cores. This is an early warning signal that hardship is spreading, not contained.

Displacement paradox: Some “improving” tracts nearby may be gentrifying, pushing lower-income households outward into these emerging clusters. Declining hardship scores do not necessarily mean existing residents are better off.

The majority of tracts improved over the decade-long window. However, aggregate improvement masks significant variation: 31.1% of tracts worsened over the same period. The data cannot distinguish genuine economic uplift from population turnover: a tract with a declining hardship index may simply have replaced lower-income residents with higher-income newcomers.

Data limitation: Before drawing conclusions from improving scores, ground-truth verification through community engagement and displacement tracking is essential.

Target: 158 Persistent Hot Spot tracts (17.8% of all Maricopa tracts): spatially concentrated, entrenched hardship confirmed by a Global Moran’s I of 0.684.

TODO: There is a dense concentration of persistent hot spots along the central-south Phoenix urban corridor. High positive hardship index values ranging from 0.062 to 2.268 indicate that hardship is deeply entrenched and suggest that conditions are not isolated but rather are systemic barriers tied to housing, transportation, and limited employment.

To address this Maricopa County’s Housing & Community Development (HCD) Division should intervene by targeting these areas for transit expansion and workforce development along with affordable housing initiatives.

Target: 24 Emerging Hot Spot tracts (2.7% of all Maricopa tracts), new high-hardship clusters not present in 2013, signaling spatial expansion.

TODO: Emerging hot spots are forming along the eastern and northeastern edges of central Phoenix and extending into surrounding suburban areas. This indicates that high hardship families may be relocating to more affordable areas, resulting in hardship clustering in these areas.

To address this, the County should focus on these emerging neighborhoods to track rent increases and demographic changes at the tract level while providing interventions such as rental assistance and preserving affordable housing. By identifying and closely monitoring at-risk populations early, stabilization can be focused on halting the outward spread of hardship.

Evidence base: 53.7% of tracts improved (2013→2023) but 31.1% worsened; Moran’s I = 0.684 confirms strong spatial clustering persists.

TODO: In order to reduce the spread of hardship and target those areas already experiencing it, early warning indicators should be developed to flag clusters were tracts are transitioning into higher hardship indexes. In order to effectively address these areas, it’s important to target multiple areas in a coordinated manner. Housing, schools, transportation, and public health systems should be aligned at the neighborhood level rather than each being targeted individually.

The baseline EHI consists of 3 measures: Poverty + Unemployment + Income (inv.)

Current index: 7-component EHI: Poverty + Unemployment + Income (inv.) + Renter Burden + Low Ed. Attainment + Food Insecurity (SNAP) + Transp. Disadvantage

Q1: What changed spatially?
Compare Hot Spot tract counts and cluster map patterns between your expanded index and the 3-component baseline. Did adding Renter Burden + Low Ed. Attainment + Food Insecurity (SNAP) + Transp. Disadvantage shift which tracts or corridors are flagged?

When the additional 4 variables were added, the number of hot spot tracts increased from 201 to 267. The spacial distribution changed only minimally for the entire state. Northwest and Central AZ showed some lower hardship index areas with the added variables. The number of persistent hot spots decreased by 66 tracts with the expanded index, and the Moran’s I value increased from 0.624 to 0.684. Mohave, La Paz, Greenlee, and parts of Coconino Counties lost hot spots with the increased index.

Q2: What stayed the same?
Which Persistent Hot Spot areas appear robustly across index specifications? What does consistency across different index compositions tell us about the reliability of hardship diagnoses in those tracts?

Q3: Policy implications of index choice
If a policymaker targeted place-based investments using the baseline index versus your expanded index, would resource allocation differ? Name specific tracts or geographic corridors and argue which composition better captures the full burden of economic hardship for policy purposes.