While proximity to public services such as post offices is likely correlated with population densities, commercial zoning, and levels of urbanization, one would expect proximity to public services such as Department of Human Services offices, and proximity to most human and social services to be related to the locations of the populations most likely to use those services. In general, we would expect populations in poverty to be the most likely clients of these services. But an examination of the top ten list above suggests little relationship between the locations of populations in poverty and the locations of services. Certainly some of these neighborhoods, such as King and downtown Portland, have high percentages of populations in poverty, but many of these neighborhoods, such as Evergreen and Waluga, are not high poverty neighborhoods. The fact that they have such high proximity to public, human, and social services is an interesting phenomenon that would be worth further exploration.

A similar pattern exists even when looking at the ten neighborhoods with the highest proximity to just human and social services:

Some of these neighborhoods have high levels of poverty, but many do not. The list suggests that some neighborhoods may have high proximity to human and social services because of their central location (e.g. Goose Hollow), proximity to transit (e.g. Hollywood), or because they were once high poverty neighborhoods that have undergone subsequent demographic changes (e.g. Northwest District).

The flip side of this analysis would be to look at how the highest poverty areas in the region fare in terms of proximity to public, human, and social services. Data on neighborhood poverty levels is only available by census tract. The ten census tracts with the highest poverty rates in the region are listed below. While some of the census tracts on this list have good access to services, quite a few of them, such as those highlighted in yellow, have extremely low proximity to public, human, and social services.

The Atlas mapping tool can be used for this type of analysis to help inform decisions about where to site public, human, and social services, as well as to identify areas that are already rich in services and therefore offer better access to opportunity for low-income residents.