In the Baltimore opportunity mapping’s study, the authors offer an improved approach to opportunity mapping claiming it will increase impacts on public policy and show greater socio-economic opportunity outcomes within the Baltimore City’s public housing residents. The study presents robust, thorough and well executed framework. However, there are small concerns over the data sources and indicators selection panel process discussed below.
The study describes “variation in access to opportunity by various demographic groups and offers relevant recommendations to guide the placement of affordable housing” in Baltimore, MD. Despite the positive influence of a group called the Baltimore Opportunity Collaborative (BOC) in bringing together a diverse group of powerful stakeholders, and delivering a both thorough and well executed study, the decision making-process of the Opportunity Mapping Advisory Panel (OMAP) which oversee the selection of the data
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**The study’s hypothesis is that the proposed improved approach of measuring, displaying, and adequately using the opportunity mapping framework results in helping Baltimore’s communities and the U.S. Department of Housing Urban Development (HUD) to identify better suited Baltimore’s opportunity neighborhoods where the HUD and its partners should engage in building affordable housings.
This hypothesis is relevant for Baltimore, other U.S. cities and regions. The Thomson v HUD, 2006 Maryland District Court which held that the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) violated the 1968 Fair Housing Act by unfairly concentrating African-American public housing residents in the most impoverished, segregated areas of Baltimore City, which paved the road for John Powel’s “opportunity mapping” framework to help and support policymakers and public leaders better understand local socio-economic dynamics in urban and regional policy to improve community public housing