Description: To assist communities in identifying
racially/ethnically-concentrated areas of poverty (R/ECAPs), HUD has developed
a census tract-based definition of R/ECAPs. The definition involves a
racial/ethnic concentration threshold and a poverty test. The racial/ethnic
concentration threshold is straightforward: R/ECAPs must have a non-white
population of 50 percent or more. Regarding the poverty threshold, Wilson
(1980) defines neighborhoods of extreme poverty as census tracts with 40
percent or more of individuals living at or below the poverty line. Because
overall poverty levels are substantially lower in many parts of the country,
HUD supplements this with an alternate criterion. Thus, a neighborhood can be a
R/ECAP if it has a poverty rate that exceeds 40% or is three or more times the
average tract poverty rate for the metropolitan/micropolitan area, whichever
threshold is lower. Census tracts with this extreme poverty that satisfy the
racial/ethnic concentration threshold are deemed R/ECAPs. This translates into
the following equation: Where i represents
census tracts, () is the metropolitan/micropolitan (CBSA) mean tract poverty
rate, is the ith tract poverty rate, () is the
non-Hispanic white population in tract i, and Pop is the population
in tract i.While this definition of
R/ECAP works well for tracts in CBSAs, place outside of these geographies are
unlikely to have racial or ethnic concentrations as high as 50 percent. In
these areas, the racial/ethnic concentration threshold is set at 20 percent.
Data Source: American Community Survey (ACS), 2009-2013; Decennial Census (2010); Brown Longitudinal Tract Database (LTDB) based on decennial census data, 1990, 2000 & 2010.
Related AFFH-T Local Government, PHA Tables/Maps: Table 4, 7; Maps 1-17.
Related AFFH-T State Tables/Maps: Table 4, 7; Maps 1-15, 18.
References:Wilson, William J. (1980). The Declining Significance of Race: Blacks and Changing American Institutions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
To learn more about R/ECAPs visit: https://www.hudexchange.info/resource/4868/affh-raw-data/Date of Coverage: 11/2017
Copyright Text: U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, U.S. Census Bureau, Brown University Longitudinal Tract Database