Community Prosperity/Poverty (Prospov) Maps: Development and Usefulness

ABSTRACT

The number of poor people and the total number of people in United States counties are strongly and non-linearly correlated, illustrated by power laws. The total number of people and the number of enterprises in U.S. counties and micropolitan statistical areas are also non-linearly correlated. Graphs of power law data points of the latter relationship visually map the relative prosperity/poverty levels of more than 3000 counties or more than 500 micropolitans despite orders of magnitude differences in population or enterprise numbers. The utility of Prospov maps is illustrated by superimposition of different socioeconomic and entrepreneurial characteristics on them.

KEYWORDS:

• Mapping
• poverty
• prosperity
• U.S. counties
• U.S. micropolitan statistical areas

Acknowledgments

The Centre for Environmental Management, University of the Free State, provided administrative and research support. Alumnus services of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology provided online scholarly journal access. Jean le Roux provided technical assistance. The author reports there are no competing interests to declare.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).