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.

Persistent Geographic Concern: Spatially, the core concentration of persistent hot spots remains consistent across both analyses in the area of central Phoenix, southeast Glendale, and west Mesa.

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.

Emerging hot spots: Emerging hot spots and hot spot outliers north of the Mesa cluster suggest that this cluster may be growing and that displacement may be taking place. While research and local context will be key in identifying why this is taking place, renter burden and lack of access to housing is one possibility as to why we are seeing the emergence of these hot spots.

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: Ground-truth verification through community engagement and displacement tracking is essential because observed “improvements” in places like South Phoenix and Mesa may reflect uneven gains driven by institutional interventions rather than true increases in resident well-being. Without directly assessing whether existing residents are benefiting—or being displaced—these spatial patterns risk misrepresenting progress and obscuring whether capabilities are genuinely expanding or simply shifting across populations.

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.

RECOMMENDATION: The area known locally as “ South Phoenix” should be prioritized for place-based intervention, as multiple tracts in this area fall within persistent hot spot clusters. This indicates deeply entrenched and spatially concentrated disadvantage that has remained stable over time. To address this, the City of Phoenix Office of Community and Economic Development should expand its Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) strategy along the light rail corridor by implementing a community land trust (CLT) model to preserve long-term housing affordability and prevent displacement. This intervention would ensure that infrastructure investments translate into sustained improvements in resident capabilities rather than displacement-driven change. Rent stabilization or policies that support renter transition to home-ownership would be a way to remove rental burdens on residents who have capabilities to buy into the current market.

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

RECOMMENDATION: The growing hardship cluster along the I 60 freeway, known locally as West Mesa, should be prioritized for early intervention, as the analysis identified notable emerging hot spots along its northern boarders. It is possible that Mesa is exhibiting a displacement paradox, where revitalization efforts such as light rail expansion and place-based reinvestment may improve neighborhood conditions while simultaneously increasing housing costs and displacing vulnerable residents.

To address both risks, the City of Mesa Office of Economic Development, in coordination with the Mesa Urban Transformation Office, should implement a real-time neighborhood change monitoring system that tracks rent increases, property turnover, and demographic shifts alongside hardship indicators. This system should be paired with early-stage anti-displacement tools such as rental assistance programs, preservation of naturally occurring affordable housing (NOAH), and right-to-return policies. The end goal should be to ensure intervention occurs before hardship becomes entrenched and before existing residents are pushed out.

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

RECOMMENDATION: Maricopa County has been one of the fastest-growing large counties in the U.S. The population grew from approximately 3.8 million in 2010 to over 4.7 million in 2026—an increase of roughly 900,000 people. It is critical that Maricopa County establish a cross-sector coordination framework modeled after the Urban Institute’s Upward Mobility Framework to monitor essential indicators of social mobility and ensure that population growth is matched by growth in opportunity.

Through the adoption of the Urban Institute’s Upward Mobility Framework and the integration of spatial trajectory data, Maricopa County can identify early warning signals of emerging hot spots or displacement pressures and intervene proactively. This approach would enable more targeted, cost-efficient policy responses that both prevent the spread of concentrated disadvantage and ensure that observed improvements translate into sustained gains for existing residents.

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?

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.