L.A. Controller Releases Interactive Program to Track City’s Equity Disparity

Los Angeles Controller Ron Galperin released an interactive online tool Thursday that measures equity among the city’s neighborhoods and the barriers to opportunity some of them face.

“A Great Divide: L.A. Equity Index,” accessible at lacontroller.org/equityindex, involves a series of maps that explore how a number of socioeconomic factors including housing costs, educational achievement, environmental challenges and access to resources such as health insurance, food and high-speed Internet affect people’s lives.

The maps show some neighborhoods are affected “far more severely” than others, Galperin said.

“Los Angeles is home to 4 million residents living in more than 100 different neighborhoods,” Galperin said. “It is incredibly geographically, demographically and economically diverse, but there is a great equity divide. Too many neighborhoods face barriers to opportunity that negatively impact the people who live there, many of whom are people of color and immigrant families.”

Galperin said the L.A. Equity Index gives policymakers and all Angelenos a more comprehensive understanding of community issues that can drive data-informed decisions to improve neighborhoods and lives.

The index indicators examined are rent burden, poverty level, home ownership, air quality, closeness to toxic releases, proximity to traffic and education levels. It also examines a neighborhood’s ability to access quality Internet service, food and health insurance.

Dozens of additional variables are also considered, including ethnic makeup and median income, which also inform the final results, Galperin said.

Some information collected on neighborhoods from the Equity Index that Galperin highlighted are:

— South and East Los Angeles scored lowest on the Equity Index, as these neighborhoods are home to more rent-burdened individuals, greater poverty, more environmental concerns and access to fewer resources;

— West Los Angeles and the West San Fernando Valley scored highest on the Equity Index, as these areas include more homeowners, higher income levels, better air quality and more education achievement, among other things;

— Adults without a high school diploma are twice as likely to live in poverty in Los Angeles as those who graduate;

— Predominantly Latino communities are twice as likely to lack health insurance as mostly white communities, and Galperin said the average Encino resident earns almost three times as much as the average Boyle Heights resident; and

— Almost 40% of local families made under 200% of the federal poverty level in 2018, equivalent to just $50,200 for a family of four.

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