High Economic Hardship Clusters (HH) — Hot Spot Tracts Statewide:
267
Low Economic Hardship Clusters (LL) — Cold Spot Tracts Statewide:
269
Tracts Improved (2013→2023)
53.7%
Tracts Worsened (2013→2023)
31.1%
Persistently High Hardship (2013–2023)
17.8%
Emerging Hot Spots (2013–2023)
2.7%
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.
There are about 158 persistent hot spot tracts in both 2013 and 2019 by the census. These are consistently concentrated in south and central Phoenix, mostly downtown to the north and extending south. With a renter burden 34.4 percent country average and food insecurity overlap we see that poverty core, compounding disadvantages across the board. The city of Phoenix housing department and maricopas countries community services department should coordinate a place based investment strategy that targets anti-displacement protections alongside subsidized housing preventions and snap outreach given the overall overlap.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 24 emerging hot spot tracts appear at the eastern and southeastern fringe of the persistent HH core. Consistent with displacement pressure pushing lower-income households outward from a gentrifying central core. This pattern fits the displacement paradox directly: tracts immediately surrounding the persistent core show declining hardship scores not because residents are better off, but because higher-income newcomers have replaced them, concentrating displaced households into these newly emerging clusters.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.
Maricopa’s 53.7% improvement rate looks positive in aggregate, but the Sankey diagram reveals that Q5 tracts are highly stable, meaning improvement is concentrated in middle quintiles rather than the bottom. Meanwhile 31.1% of tracts worsened, and with a Moran’s I of 0.684 the expanded index actually reveals stronger spatial clustering than the 3-component version, meaning hardship is more geographically concentrated than the baseline suggested. This argues for cross-sector coordination between ASU’s urban planning programs, Maricopa County Public Health, and regional employers to establish shared outcome metrics that track resident-level outcomes.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: Write your first recommendation. Name the specific geographic corridor, cite the hardship index values, and propose a concrete place-based intervention with a named responsible entity.
The 158 persistent hot spot tracts are concentrated in south and central Phoenix, forming a contiguous zone of entrenched hardship confirmed by a Global Moran’s I of 0.684. The 7-component index shows this corridor carries compounding burdens: renter burden, food insecurity, and low educational attainment overlap spatially with poverty, making single-sector interventions insufficient. The City of Phoenix and Maricopa County Community Services Department should coordinate a place-based investment strategy targeting this corridor using HUD Community Development Block Grant funding, prioritizing affordable housing preservation and SNAP enrollment infrastructure.Target: 24 Emerging Hot Spot tracts (2.7% of all Maricopa tracts), new high-hardship clusters not present in 2013, signaling spatial expansion.
TODO: Reference the displacement paradox, identify where these clusters are forming, and propose an early-intervention or monitoring strategy.
The 24 emerging hot spot tracts are forming at the eastern and southeastern edges of the persistent HH core, consistent with displacement pushing lower-income households outward from a gentrifying central Phoenix. Improving index scores in adjacent tracts do not mean residents are better off; they likely reflect population turnover rather than genuine economic uplift. Maricopa County Planning should establish a monitoring protocol using annual ACS estimates for renter burden and SNAP receipt, flagging tracts that spike more than 1.5 standard deviations above the county mean.Evidence base: 53.7% of tracts improved (2013→2023) but 31.1% worsened; Moran’s I = 0.684 confirms strong spatial clustering persists.
TODO: Using the trajectory map and mobility Sankey, make a forward-looking data-monitoring or cross-sector coordination argument.
The Sankey diagram shows Q5 tracts are the least mobile in the county, meaning the most distressed neighborhoods in 2013 largely remained distressed in 2023 despite the aggregate 53.7% improvement rate. Moran’s I increased from 0.624 to 0.684 under the expanded index, revealing stronger spatial concentration than the baseline captured. Maricopa County, Valley Metro, and the Arizona Department of Economic Security should adopt the 7-component index as a shared measurement framework and re-render it annually to track whether clustering is contracting or expanding.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
After adding your extra component(s), answer the following (minimum 2 sentences each):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 bwurden of economic hardship for policy purposes.