Despite persistent racial disparities, most children raised in Madison have better opportunities than any other U.S. metro area, according to a report from Brandeis University.
An article in the Wisconsin State Journal notes that Brandeis, located in Waltham, Massachusetts, ranked all of the nation’s 72,000 neighborhoods.
The report, titled “The Geography of Child Opportunity: Why Neighborhoods Matter for Equity,” assigned child opportunity scores after reviewing factors such as poverty rates, high school graduation rates, employment statistics, and accessibility of green spaces. On a scale of 1 to 100, Madison scored a national high of 83.
Researchers noted, however, that white children have significant advantages, and local black and Hispanic children are disproportionately concentrated in very low opportunity neighborhoods, a pattern that was seen nationwide.
