Local Metrics Document Extra Years, Few Divorces, But Unstable Housing
(Editor’s note: This story is the first in an occasional series that will seek insights about life in Lower Manhattan by reviewing statistics available from the Data2Go.NYC website, created by Measure of America – a nonpartisan, non-profit project of the Brooklyn-based Social Science Research Council. This installment focuses on “core statistics” drawn from the American Human Development Index. Future articles will consider local metrics related to health, education, prosperity, and public safety.)
According to a range of statistical indicators that are grouped together under the rubric of “Human Development,” the square mile at the southern tip of Manhattan is part of a cluster of privilege that only a handful of other communities in the five boroughs of New York can match.
Since the early 1990s, social scientists have been measuring achievement and opportunity using what they call the Human Development Index (HDI). This yardstick focuses on three dimensions of measurement (health, education, and income) and allows demographers to compare well-being in various nations. In this global ranking, Iceland is currently the most developed nation in the world. The United States ranks 17th (in a three-way tie with New Zealand and Lichtenstein) in absolute terms, and 29th when the tabulations are adjusted for inequality.
But Measure for America uses a modified form of HDI, which it calls the American Human Development Index (AHDI). This measure also focuses on health, education, and income, but takes advantage of more precise statistical readings available in the United States to incorporate sharper indicators – for example, using educational achievement, rather than school enrollment.
In Lower Manhattan (defined here as falling within the boundaries of Community District 1 – an amalgam of neighborhoods encompassing 1.5 square miles, bounded roughly by Canal, Baxter, and Pearl Streets, and the Brooklyn Bridge), all three dimensions of measurement rank near the top of the range.
The overall ADHI score for Downtown is 8.90, out of a possible ten, ranking the area eighth out of all 59 community districts in New York City (for which the average score is 6.29). In terms of life expectancy, this translates into an extra five years in this world for Lower Manhattan residents (87 years, versus a City-wide average of 82.4 years).
The local educational index (based on school enrollment for the population aged three to 24 years and degree attainment for the population 25 years and older) is 7.9, compared with 5.7 for the City as a whole. Community District 1 also scores higher than any other catchment in the City in terms of median personal earnings, with $129,000, more than double the $57,300 average for New York overall.
The total population within the community is 71,865, the third lowest throughout the City, which comes to slightly less than half of the average (of 142,132) among all 59 community districts. But the population density (51,600 people per square mile) is among the highest anywhere in New York.
In terms of household composition, the largest cohort (at 40.7 percent of the population) is adults living alone, followed closely by married couples (at 39.9 percent). Approximately one in five households (19.8 percent) have children. Single parents with kids comprise less than 5.0 percent of the local population, split between three-fourths mothers and one-fourth fathers. Slightly more than one in 20 residents (5.3 percent) are divorced, the second-lowest tally in New York.
Ranked in terms of housing stability (defined as the percentage of adults age who currently live in the same dwelling they occupied one year ago), Community District 1 places lowest in the City at 72.4 percent.