Revenue and Expenditures

The US Census Bureau announced yesterday findings from their 2010 Annual Surveys of State and Local Government Finances.

The press release contained three summary maps from the annual survey that compared state revenues from property taxes and state expenditures on education and welfare. A snapshot of these maps, and some simple extractions showing how Kansas and Missouri ranked in these areas follows.

Percent of Total State and Local Government General Revenue Received from Property Taxes: 2010, Source US Census Bureau

• Kansas = 17.3%
• Missouri =14.0%
• State with highest percentage: New Hampshire, 33.6%
• State with lowest percentage: New Mexico, 7.3%
• Kansas national rank: 23rd
• Missouri national rank: 36th

Percent of Total State and Local Government Expenditures on Education: 2010, Source US Census Bureau

• Kansas = 32.1%
• Missouri = 28.2%
• State with highest percentage: Arkansas at 34.9%
• State with lowest percentage: District of Columbia at 17.4% (Okay, technically not a state, but it’s on the list just after Alaska at 22.1%)
• Kansas national rank: 8th
• Missouri national rank: 29th

Percent of Total State and Local Government Expenditures on Public Welfare: 2010, Source US Census Bureau

• Kansas = 12.7%
• Missouri = 14.7%
• State with highest percentage: Maine, 23.7%
• State with lowest percentage: Colorado, 8.4%
• Kansas national rank: 42nd
• Missouri national rank: 25th

3-D View of KCMO Population

A map showing the center points constructed from 2010 census blocks within Kansas City, Missouri. The block points loosely follow the pattern of population density within Kansas City. 

The same map as above, but with a regular grid of polygons added to it along with a few labels for the cities enveloped by Kansas City.

In this map, the population values have been transferred from the block points to the grid cells, totaled for each cell, and the cells symbolized by total population. The result is a generalized map of population density.

The cells from the above map extruded and color coded by total population and observed from a southeast perspective.

The 3-D view of population observed from a southwest perspective.

The Income Landscape

The look at income variations across Greater Kansas City continues with these five depictions of median household income constructed using data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2006-2010 American Community Survey.

Map 1: A map of median household income across Greater Kansas City. The area units used for the map are census tracts. Darker shades represent tracts with lower incomes; lighter shades represent tracts with higher incomes.

Map 2: Median household income across Greater KC represented with a raster surface interpolated from the census tract data used in Map 1.

This  map emphasizes  the overall pattern of nine income categories and the transitions between them. Greens are low-income areas; yellows and oranges are middle-income areas; reds and whites are zones of high income.

Map 3: This map uses the same data as the previous, but employs a different application of color to emphasize the relative intensity between high and low income areas. Areas with the lowest median household incomes are assigned the deepest reds; areas with the highest incomes are colored with the deepest greens.

Map 4: A 3-D depiction of income with high-income areas extruded. The green peak near the center of the region is the Plaza-Mission Hills-Brookside area which is connected by a ridge to another high-income peak in the southeastern portion of Johnson County.  The two other major summit areas in this map include northwest Johnson County (which includes portions of Shawnee, west Lenexa, and northwest Olathe), and a portion of KCMO in Clay County just west of the City of Liberty.

Map 5: A 3-D depiction of income with low-income areas extruded. The large summit region in the middle of the map includes downtown KCK and the central to east-central portions of KCMO. A wide ridge of low income follows US Highway-71 south through KCMO out to the Cass county line. A second, and narrower, ridge of relatively low income extends southwest along I-35 between two prominent areas of high income in Johnson County.

Wealth & Poverty

Last March, the Kansas City Business Journal picked up on Esri’s demographic data and used it to identify the ten wealthiest ZIP codes in the metro. Wealth in this case is not defined strictly by income, but rather, by a combination of several factors. These affluent ZIP codes are shown in the following map.

Thank you Business Journal. Anyone for tennis?

What about areas with the least amount of “wealth”?

The map below shows the ten census tracts with the highest percentage of poverty.

Generally speaking, the maps show that the most-wealthy among us tend to live in Johnson County along state line, with a few pockets of high wealth near the plaza, west of Lenexa, and the lakes area of central Jackson County. The poorest among us are mostly clustered in and around downtown KCK, across the river east and southeast of downtown KCMO, and in the southeast KCMO around the area of the Bannister Complex.

The two maps show—again, in a general way—where wealth and poverty have settled in across the region. Direct comparisons of the maps is not recommended because one uses ZIPs as the area units, and the other census tracts. Still, you can reasonably conclude from them that wealth is mostly south and suburban, and poverty is mostly central and urban. No surprise, really.