Demographic Analysis

Safe Playgrounds in Washington DC

In order to conduct geographic analysis on playground data within the borders of Washington DC, location data for playgrounds within the borders of Washington DC was obtained via two routes. This analysis can provide city planners and park owners information about the areas in which playgrounds in DC are currently located, and potentially inform decisionmakers on areas which might be underserved by current play spaces. Below, you will find information specifically related to demographics of residents in DC as published in Census datasets.

Map 1: All DC Playgrounds:

First, OpenData DC provided the vast majority of data points through the Parks and Recreation Areas map layer provided by the Department of Parks and Recreation (DPR). This dataset was filtered by the attribute which denotes whether or not a given facility includes a playground. Added to this data were the parks that were returned from a Google API search for playgrounds within Washington DC. One limitation of this dataset which will be addressed in future research is the possibility of overlapping datapoints between these two datasets that were unresolved during their merge. Map 1 shows all of the locations of playgrounds, and features a search box for individuals who would like to search for a specific park.

Playgrounds to Population Demographics:

Map 2: Count of Population Under the Age of 18

Map 3: Percentage of Population Under the Age of 18

A comparison of park locations (with density overlay) against a heatmap of a given area’s population under the age of 18 reveals some interesting trends. The areas included in these maps are Cenus Tracts from 2018. Both Maps 2 and 3 show that those under the age of 18 seem to be clustered around the edges of Washington DC, which makes sense when one considers that there is typically more housing around the edges of the city in the suburbs. Map 2 is a heat map of total population under the age of 18, while Map 3 shows a ratio of the population within that Census Tract below the age of 18.

When compared to the location of playgrounds, though, there is some disparity. If one considers the most likely users for playgrounds to be those under the age of 18, it is interesting that the most dense locations of playgrounds are in areas where there is a lower ratio of the population under the age of 18 (Map 4). Map 3 seems to do a bit better when taking a look at the cluster in the center of the city- a few tracts with higher numbers of children under 18 coincide with the dense area of playgrounds, but several tracts in the same area have a very low number of residents in the appropriate age range.

This begs the question why these parks were created in these areas, and indicates a possible need for playgrounds in areas with a higher population ratio or numbers of children. This could inform a city planner on which areas are suffering from a lack of play spaces.

Economic Status of Residents

Map 4: Percentage of Families with Children Under the Age of 18 Whose Income Is Below the Poverty Level

Depicted on Map 4 we see that the majority of the playgrounds in DC are located in areas with a low percentage of families with children under the age of 18 whose income fell below the poverty level in the last 12 months. There are playgrounds located in the areas with higher percentages of these families, but the map seems to show a disparity between the two income groupings. This could provide a city planner looking for more equitible treatement with a portion of the city which could use additional playgrounds, though care would need to be taken to examine housing availability in areas of economic evaluation as a large section of the city is not zoned for residential areas.