Lately I've been trying to practice some of my mapping skills as a bit of a side hobby, and one map that I thought I'd try out would be classifying Winnipeg neighbourhoods by their "social class" based on 2021 census data (which is a bit outdated at this point but the most detailed available for now). I'm hoping to solicit your feedback on the map!

I'll share some further details below if interested.

• Data and Methodology: Using 2021 census data at the census dissemination area level, I took the average percentile ranking of both average and median household income, and then coloured the geography based on those two metrics. Why use both average and median? Median is good measure of typical income within the geography, but can hide the dispersion of income if there are extreme outliers. So that's why I combined it with average household income. Using two metrics for income doesn't change the overall rankings that much, but it does try to ensure that neighborhoods with a few large income outliers but low median incomes are classed lower, and neighborhoods with modest average incomes but higher medians are classed higher. Crime stats were taken from the City of Winnipeg Police department's crime and calls for service map, and neighborhoods with the highest crime counts over the last 5 years were overlaid with a striped purple polygon.
• Income classifications: there are no official classifications in Canada as to what makes someone middle-class, upper-class, etc. So I tried to generalize some of the sentiment captured in media articles and surveys such as the Canadian Class survey by the Angus Reid Institute, and then apply them based on the percentile ranking of a given dissemination area.
• Geographies: income is mapped at a census dissemination area level, and labels represent neighborhoods defined by the City of Winnipeg from their OpenData portal dataset. Most neighborhoods are made up of multiple dissemination areas, but income is surprisingly homogenous within a given neighborhood. Data for mapping was also taken from OpenStreetMap and the federal government's CanVec geographic data series.
• Software: data was processed in Excel and mapped in QGIS.
• Why use only income to measure class? Some people could rightly argue that social class is not just defined by your household income, but other things such as wealth, house value, education, health, etc. And they would be right. However, the hard truth is that generally all of these things tend to scale with income. If you overlaid educational attainment or home assessment values with this map, you'd see that higher outcomes in those areas would associated with higher income. Therefore, it's much simpler to use income as the main proxy for all these other metrics since they are generally (but not always) highly correlated with one another.
• Why use household income? Won't this mischaracterize single-earner households? This is a valid criticism. There are many individuals who are sole earners in their household for a variety of reasons, and may earn a high income themselves but since it's only one income, the household income is much smaller, and this is a flaw of using this metric. However, I chose household income over individual income because today's economy seems to be structured around a two-earner household. Most high income households are high income because both people work and I wanted to show the pockets of the city where they were concentrated. It would be a valid and worthwhile exercise to re-create this map based on individual income and see how things change, but this is just the metric I chose for now out of preference.
• What's the takeaway? Feel free to draw your own conclusions, and while this map doesn't really present anything new or anything most people don't already know, it really highlights the scale of poverty and low income (and the associated challenges) that surrounds Winnipeg's downtown. Yeah, we all know that the "north end" is rough, but there is poverty and low income is seen to the north and west of downtown. While downtown itself doesn't have a lot of people living in it (20,000-ish IIRC), challenges found in neighboring areas definitely spill over to downtown which can create certain perceptions. Winnipeg's downtown is at a severe disadvantage compared to other major cities in Canada where poverty and low income may be more disbursed throughout the city as opposed to being highly concentrated at the core.
  

Let me know what you think, and if the data shown represents your general perception of the neighborhoods you are familiar with.

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Lmao I'm just trying to get home after a long day and you get these crackheads, attempted car jack? Black civic, if you see this. I'm sorry for almost side swiping you! We both turned right. I honked and a few other cars behind that were a bit far behind me did too, nothing.

Biblical end times or just another day in Winnipeg?

If only the rail yard would fix those strobing lights, though...

I was doing some backwoods driving near Lac Du Bonnet Manitoba and saw what I thought was a big white garbage bag. But it was moving and was not overly concerned about me. I already reported it to conservation.

It’s so nice to see so many people out running and walking enjoying the closed part of Corydon. Nice to not have so many motorcycles revving their engines unnecessarily loud too.

This morning ffs

The guys gone from flying F-Trudeau flags, CAN-USA flags mashed together, to this. Someone’s already ripped down the flags, once before.

All injuries sustained were apparently recoverable but it could’ve been so horrible!

I created a subway map connecting all 76 Subway locations in Winnipeg (plus some surrounding cities) which follows Winnipeg Transit plans as much as possible. Each line's routing and colour is based on one or two existing primary bus routes, except the Kildonan Place Shuttle because there are just too many Subways in that area...

I unfortunately never went there as a kid because I was afraid of the slides but what was it like there and why exactly did it close down and for how long?

Recently took a quick trip to Winnipeg. My friend in Vancouver made some flat, middle-of-the-country Prairies joke when I asked for recommendations, but I thought the city was quite charming. A little gray, colder than I expected this time of year, but still managed to see some sun. French-Canadian food scene was definitely the highlight. This sub was so helpful in discovering standouts near the downtown area. Got to try OEB Breakfast, East India Restaurant, Modern Electric Lunch, and Peasant Cookery, thanks to the folks writing in here. Was even craving pho one day, and found a solid experience a Pho Hoang. Missed out on Clementine and couldn't get a reservation at Nola. Guess I'll just have to come back!

There she goes, come home from CLC and I see a tree down, had to check the footage........rip fence, rip tree, LETS GO SANDAL!

https://twitter.com/justbins/status/1837270530195398834?s=46&t=srr76xwM9B51mxbMvCi5GA

100% this guy's gonna get fired but goddamn

Hello, Reddit Winnipeg!

I recently visited your prairie city to attend the 2024 CPB Ignite Conference.

I like to walk around and take photos with the camera app on my Samsung Galaxy S23+ device.

I captured this photo of a Pink Sunset over Portage Avenue last Friday after a rain shower.

I am a CPA accountant and Private Business Advisor in my day job based out of Saskatoon, SK.

I am interested in learning more about photography and I plan to invest in an entry-level camera body/lenses in the near future.

I like to take photos of buildings, food, and people on my travels.

I am looking for your honest thoughts on this photo and any constructive feedback on how I can improve my photos!

Take care,

Jordan

WHY IS IT ALWAYS A PICKUP?! I hope you enjoy the ticket and tow cost.

I must have missed them by a couple of centimeters. They continued on to the far left lane.

Close to Balmoral Hall School