Discussion and Conclusion
After viewing these maps, what should immediately appear is the level of racial segregation into high and low levels of educational attainment, incomes, and how this segregation relates to geographic location for these racial groups. The areas of highest affluence are populated overwhelmingly by Whites, while the Hispanic and African-American populations show markedly less income in the geographic areas in which they live. The Asian community is fairly mixed, with some Asians living in relative abundance, and others in much lower levels of affluence.
The strongest predictor of high or low income is educational attainment. When comparing the per-capita income maps to those that depict the level of education, a strong correlation is seen -- high education leads to higher level of affluence, while less education breeds lower incomes. This is a fairly straightforward relationship, and is clearly maintained over the maps.
However, the same neighborhoods show up over and over again with the same racial compostions and relative levels of income. As the specialized income maps show, the same geographic areas have the same relative level of poverty or affluence, regardless of educational attainment, and they boast the same ethinc populations. This begs the question: is geographic location a causal element in factoring race to income level? After all, minorities living in these areas of poverty, whether they have graduated high school or college, are still making less money than a person with their level of educational attainment should be receiving, while those that live in the most affluent areas of the city are making far more than a person with that level of education should bring home, and more often than not these persons are White.
As can be seen from the racial maps, ethnic groups tend to cluster together. And, when comparing these maps to the per-capita income map, we see that these areas are often lower in income than the white sections. The populations of these areas (mostly minority, but also White, as White people tend to live all over the Metro Los Angeles area) often have lower level of education, and so will have lower incomes. Thus, poverty tends to fall along geographic areas, since the populations of these areas have lower educational levels, and so do not have access to the better jobs requiring a degree.
Generally speaking, when a person gains a degree and becomes upwardly mobile in terms of income level, they tend to move out of the lower income areas and into "better" neighborhoods. Those with degrees that stay behind may not have the means (such as saved money or transportation) to move out of the lower income areas, and so take jobs that pay less than they would otherwise make. Thus, those that have high school or college degrees that continue to live in the lower income neighborhoods will make less money than a person with that degree should bring home.
This does not rule out racism, which is still unfortunately a social reality. It could be that those with degrees who remain in the lower income areas simply could not find a job due to racist hiring practices. While these these authors do not wish to suggest racism as the prime causal element for low incomes in non-White areas, neither can it be ignored as a possible culprit in many cases.
In summary, we present three conclusions that can be drawn from this project:
1) The higher the level of educational achievement, the higher the level of income, and vice versa.
2) Poverty and affluence tend to fall in geographic areas that are often racially bounded (with Whites in the areas of higher affluence and non-Whites in the areas of lower affluence.)
3) There are many abberations in this scheme, such as those with little education living in areas of high affluence with high incomes, and others with greater levels of educations living in low income areas with much lower salaries.
This project does not pretend to have answers to the questions raised. Our goal is only to present the data and the issues surrounding them. There is a large area of study that social scientists must look into centered around geographic location, race, and income that this project brings to light. We hope that this stimulates the reader to work toward finding the answers to the questions of education, race, and level of affluence shown in these maps.
from: http://www.csun.edu/~dsv25578/maps/conclude.htm