Mapping Cultural Participation in Chicago - Cultural Policy Center

Mapping Cultural Participation in ChicagoTo better understand these patterns of arts participation, we also analyzed the geographicdistributions of three socioeconomic factors that are known to be associated with artsparticipation: (i) household income, (ii) educational attainment, and (iii) householdstructure. This third factor takes into account the number of persons in the household,the ages of adult household members, whether the household has children, and whetherthe household is headed by an unmarried woman.To motivate our analysis of this question we present measures of the distribution ofhousehold income and educational attainment by census tract in two maps followingMap 10, which shows the geographic distribution of ethnicity. In Map 11, we identifycommunities according to the level of median household income in the census tract.Median household income is the level of income for which 50 percent of the householdsin the area have a lower income and 50 percent of the households have a higher income.Areas with annual median household incomes greater than $59,000, as indicated in redon the map, are concentrated north of downtown along Lake Michigan. By contrast, asindicated by the blue, the lowest median household incomes—less than $31,000—areconcentrated on the West Side and in parts of the South Side of the city. The correlationbetween arts participation in an area and its median household income is apparent whencomparing Map 11 to Map 8.Arts participation is generally high in communities with the highest householdincomes, and it is generally low in areas with the lowest incomes.This is seen in the maps by observing that the areas that are red in one map also tend tobe red in the other. Likewise, areas shaded in blue in one map also tend to be shaded inblue in the other. However, both these correlations are by no means perfect.Specifically, although there are no low income areas with high arts participationdensities, there are many medium and high income areas that appear to havelow arts participation densities.An example of such an area is in the northwest part of the city. There, median incomesare relatively high, yet participation in large arts organizations is low.Arts participation is generally high in communities with high levels ofeducational attainment, and it is generally low in areas with low educationalattainment.Map 12 shows that arts participation is positively correlated with high levels ofeducational attainment. One measure that works well, because it is visually evidentand highly correlated with arts participation in an area, is the percentage of people witha bachelor’s degree or higher. Many of the areas with high median household incomesin Map 11 also have relatively large percentages of persons with at least a bachelor’sdegree. In the red areas of Map 12, more than 72 percent of adult residents age 25 andover have a bachelor’s degree or higher. By contrast, the blue areas indicate that fewerthan 19 percent of the population has bachelor’s degrees. Not surprisingly, areas withrelatively high levels of educational attainment also tend to have high incomes. But onceagain, these correlations are not perfect.34 Arts and Culture Organizations: Who Participates?We also find, but do not show, similar correlations with our measures of householdstructure. Larger households tend to be in low income areas with lower artsparticipation densities.