The Child Opportunity Index, a report produced by diversitydatakids.org measuring the quality of resources and neighborhood conditions for children in 100 metropolitan areas across the country, found that opportunity levels in Evanston often align with ward lines and racial demographics across the city.

The report maps opportunities by neighborhood, assigning them a score from one to 100 and breaking scores up into five different levels, ranging from very low opportunity to very high opportunity.

Dolores Acevedo-Garcia, the organization’s project director, said the report, which was released in January 2020, is the Child Opportunity Index’s second iteration. The initial report was released in 2014, she said, but this new version focuses on being able to compare neighborhoods across metropolitan areas.

“In all the work that we do, we have always tried to take an economic population approach to how we analyze the problem,” Acevedo-Garcia said. “That’s important for us, to be able to document the extent of well-being or inequality across the US.”

In Evanston, no ward was rated very low. However, the Fifth Ward was entirely low opportunity, and the Second Ward was all rated moderate — and both wards have significant black and Hispanic populations compared to the rest of the city. Conversely, the Seventh and Third Wards were both rated all high or very high opportunity, and both house sizable white populations.

Acevedo-Garcia said she hopes to see the new report used as a tool for communities to quantify and address the inequalities they find within their areas. She said the previous report has already spurred actions from other groups, including the Chicago Department of Public Health.

“In some cases people are intrigued by data, because they become aware that there are really vast inequities in the community,” Acevedo-Garcia said. “Sometimes they’re already aware that there are inequities, but what they see in the data is a tangible picture, including the math and the numbers of how deep the inequities are. And that can move people to action.”

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