Bridging the Gap: Exploring Miami's Economic Inequality

Miami, a dynamic city in Florida, USA, is renowned for its captivating geography and multicultural population. Situated along the southeastern coast, Miami showcases breathtaking beaches, pristine waters, and a tropical climate that entices both locals and visitors alike. With a population exceeding 2.7 million, this vibrant metropolis thrives on its cultural diversity and offers many opportunities.

However, it is essential to delve beyond the surface and explore the actual statistics regarding economic well-being and life satisfaction in this diverse city.

• Unemployment Rate: The unemployment rate layer showcases the percentage of the labor force currently unemployed or actively seeking employment (potentially including underemployed individuals, discouraged workers, and those involuntarily working part-time). Understanding the unemployment rate at the local level allows for estimating the general economic well-being of the community.

• Race and Ethnicity Predominance: This indicator analyses and showcases the prevailing racial or ethnic group within a specific area. It provides us with information about the diversity and composition of the local population. Studying this indicator helps to uncover social and demographic patterns, disparities, and cultural dynamics within a chosen area.

• Median Home Value: The median home value represents the middle point of all the housing prices in a particular area. Understanding this layer helps us understand a community's wealth distribution and housing affordability.

• Asthma Prevalence and Hot Spots: Asthma prevalence refers to the proportion of individuals within a population diagnosed with asthma. This information gives us more insights into the health conditions, environmental factors, and psychological factors that may contribute to asthma rates in a particular area. By observing asthma prevalence, we can identify and target public health concerns in a specific area.

• Median Household Income: Median Household Income refers to the midpoint of the income distribution among all households in a given area or population. By looking into income distribution across households, we can find valuable information regarding the levels of economic disparity within a chosen area. High levels of income inequality can indicate a concentration of wealth among a small piece of the population, which could serve as the base for future policies.

• Identifying outliers in the percentage of the white population is essential for understanding the racial and ethnic diversity of a locality.

• Monitoring recession-level unemployment rates greater than 10% is crucial for understanding the well-being of the local communities experiencing severe recession-level unemployment whilst official country-level unemployment rates stay relatively low.

Looking at the geography of Miami from the perspectives of the unemployment layer and racial/ethnical predominance, it becomes pretty evident that white alone and particular groups of Hispanics and Latinx experience the most negligible unemployment in comparison with the rest of the groups, such as Black or African American, as well as less privileged Hispanic and Latinx communities.

Let us look into the following statistics — the city is divided up into four unequal sections representing the following:

• Blacks constitute 17% of the Miami population,

• Latinx and Hispanics constitute 71% of the population,

• Whites constitute 11% of the population,

• and Asians constitute 1% of the Miami population.

The wealthiest area in Miami is Indian Creek Island, which is barely o.4 square miles and is mainly inhabited by white and Hispanic/Latinx groupings, which makes perfect sense when we dig deeper into the human geography of Miami city. The median household income in the Indian Creek area is more significant than $112,000, and the median home value tends to be higher than $641,554. The median household income in one of the tracts (map shown below) close to Indian Creek is $126,721. This is expected to change by a rate of 3.24 over the next five years to $148,648. The average owner-occupied household spends only 30.2% of their income on mortgage payments, with a median home value of $637,010.

When it comes to poorest and most disadvantaged areas in Miami, there are three significant areas in Miami have predominantly high unemployment rates and meagre household income: Carol City Area, Liberty City Area, and Fort Lauderdale area, alongside some other smaller areas. In these areas with predominantly high unemployment, the population is primarily Black or African American alone, with only a tiny per cent of underprivileged Hispanics/Latinx.

These are also hot spots for asthma, which can be explained by the fact that the biological effects of the poor environment and reoccurring stress can cause asthma in kids and adults. Asthma also tends to "run in the family," so if parents grew up in an unsafe environment and developed asthma, their kids are more likely to have it. Besides being hot spots for asthma, Carol City and Fort Lauderdale are experiencing recession-level unemployment, more significant than 10%. The following quote from the Geographies Of Worklessness can explain this:

Repeated spells of unemployment, or long periods of joblessness, increase the chances of ill- health, which in turn reduces the employment prospects of the individual concerned, and increases his or her chances of unemployment or even withdrawal from the labour market into inactivity (...) The unemployed become disconnected and excluded from such networks, and thus more likely to remain unemployed.

The median home value in the Carol City, Liberty City, and Fort Lauderdale areas mostly ranges around $352,728, while the average household income mostly stays below $63,903. Moreover, the median household income in most of the tracts in Carol City, for example, is $31,012. This is expected to change by a rate of 4.30 over the next five years to $38,280. The average owner-occupied household spends 64.3% of their income on mortgage payments, with a median home value of $331,915.

As mentioned in the beginning, Miami is known for its diverse mix of cultures and ethnicities. However, beneath the surface, economic inequality remains a pressing issue. Examining various economic layers, such as unemployment rates, racial and ethnic predominance, asthma hot spots, and others, is essential, as well as showing where these issues must be addressed. Through targeted policies and assertive action, we can work towards creating a more equitable Miami for all its residents.