Visualizing household income in New York

Packages

library(tidyverse)
library(sf)
library(colorspace)
library(scales)

# useful on MacOS to speed up rendering of geom_sf() objects
if (!identical(getOption("bitmapType"), "cairo") && isTRUE(capabilities()[["cairo"]])) {
  options(bitmapType = "cairo")
}

# set default theme
theme_set(theme_minimal())

# create reusable labels for each plot
map_labels <- labs(
  title = "Median household income in New York in 2022",
  subtitle = "By census tract",
  color = NULL,
  fill = NULL,
  caption = "Source: American Community Survey"
)

Load New York 2022 median household income

We will use two data files for this analysis. The first contains median household incomes for each census tract in New York from 2022. The second contains the boundaries of each county in New York.

# load data
ny_inc <- read_rds(file = "data/ny-inc.rds")
ny_counties <- read_rds(file = "data/ny-counties.rds")

ny_inc

Simple feature collection with 5411 features and 4 fields (with 17 geometries empty)
Geometry type: MULTIPOLYGON
Dimension:     XY
Bounding box:  xmin: -79.76215 ymin: 40.4961 xmax: -71.85621 ymax: 45.01585
Geodetic CRS:  NAD83
First 10 features:
         GEOID                                         NAME medincomeE
1  36015010800   Census Tract 108; Chemung County; New York      52713
2  36015000100     Census Tract 1; Chemung County; New York      38898
3  36015000300     Census Tract 3; Chemung County; New York         NA
4  36055010200    Census Tract 102; Monroe County; New York     128860
5  36055011705 Census Tract 117.05; Monroe County; New York      97292
6  36055013902 Census Tract 139.02; Monroe County; New York      52242
7  36055004702  Census Tract 47.02; Monroe County; New York      43542
8  36055013604 Census Tract 136.04; Monroe County; New York      51081
9  36055006300     Census Tract 63; Monroe County; New York      61150
10 36055006000     Census Tract 60; Monroe County; New York      51341
   medincomeM                       geometry
1        5419 MULTIPOLYGON (((-76.83044 4...
2        6329 MULTIPOLYGON (((-76.82196 4...
3          NA MULTIPOLYGON (((-76.83836 4...
4       19811 MULTIPOLYGON (((-77.61592 4...
5       30981 MULTIPOLYGON (((-77.48616 4...
6       15890 MULTIPOLYGON (((-77.65909 4...
7        5928 MULTIPOLYGON (((-77.61634 4...
8       18842 MULTIPOLYGON (((-77.69645 4...
9       34737 MULTIPOLYGON (((-77.64697 4...
10       9027 MULTIPOLYGON (((-77.56453 4...

ny_counties

Simple feature collection with 62 features and 4 fields
Geometry type: MULTIPOLYGON
Dimension:     XY
Bounding box:  xmin: -79.76215 ymin: 40.4961 xmax: -71.85621 ymax: 45.01585
Geodetic CRS:  NAD83
First 10 features:
   GEOID                        NAME medincomeE medincomeM
1  36067   Onondaga County, New York      71479       1125
2  36071     Orange County, New York      91806       1781
3  36017   Chenango County, New York      61741       2526
4  36053    Madison County, New York      68869       2781
5  36077     Otsego County, New York      65778       2967
6  36051 Livingston County, New York      70443       2811
7  36025   Delaware County, New York      58338       2143
8  36061   New York County, New York      99880       1781
9  36065     Oneida County, New York      66402       2173
10 36115 Washington County, New York      68703       2345
                         geometry
1  MULTIPOLYGON (((-76.49931 4...
2  MULTIPOLYGON (((-74.76247 4...
3  MULTIPOLYGON (((-75.88983 4...
4  MULTIPOLYGON (((-75.99243 4...
5  MULTIPOLYGON (((-75.41693 4...
6  MULTIPOLYGON (((-78.06075 4...
7  MULTIPOLYGON (((-75.42264 4...
8  MULTIPOLYGON (((-74.00641 4...
9  MULTIPOLYGON (((-75.88676 4...
10 MULTIPOLYGON (((-73.63622 4...

Draw a continuous choropleth of median household income

Your turn: Create a choropleth map of median household income in New York. Use a continuous color gradient to identify each tract’s median household income. Use a continuous color gradient to identify each tract’s median household income.

Tip

Use the stored map_labels to set the title, subtitle, and caption for this and the remaining plots.

# add code here

Your turn: Now revise the map to use the Viridis color palette for improved readability.

# add code here

Overlay county borders

Your turn: To provide better context, overlay the NY county borders on the choropleth map.

# add code here

Convert the map into 6 discrete levels for median household income

Your turn: Continuous color palettes can be hard to distinguish visibly. To improve readability, convert the continuous color palette into a discrete one with 6 levels.

# add code here