Environmental Justice Block Groups 2022 was created from
Connecticut block group boundary data located in the Census Bureau's 2020
TIGER/Line Shapefiles. The poverty data used to determine which block groups
qualified as EJ communities (see CT State statute 22a-20a) was based on the
Census Bureau's 2020 ACS 5-year estimate. This poverty data was joined with the
block group boundaries in ArcPro. Block groups in which the percent of the
population below 200% of the federal poverty level was greater than or equal to
30.0 were selected and the resulting selection was exported as a new shapefile.
The block groups were then clipped so that only those block groups outside of
distressed municipalities were displayed. Maintenance – This layer will be
updated annually and will coincide with the annual distressed municipalities
update (around August/September). The latest ACS 5-year estimate data should be
used to update this layer. Environmental Justice Distressed Municipalities 2020
was created from Connecticut town boundary data located in the Census Bureau's
2020 TIGER/Line Shapefiles (County Subdivisions).
From this shapefile, "select by attribute" was used to
select the distressed municipalities by town name (note: the list of 2022
distressed municipalities was provided by the CT Department of Economic and
Community Development). The selection was then exported a new shapefile. The
“Union” tool was used to unite the new shapefile with tribal lands (American
Indian Area Geography) boundary data from the 2020 TIGER/Line files. In the
resulting layer, the tribal lands were deleted so only the distressed
municipalities remained. Maintenance – This layer will be updated annually when
the DECD produces its new list of distressed municipalities (around
August/September).
Note: A distressed municipality, as designated by the
Connecticut Department of Economic and Community Development, includes
municipalities that no longer meet the threshold requirements but are still in
a 5-year grace period. (See definition at CGS Sec. 32-9p(b).) Fitting into that
grace period, eight towns continue to be eligible for distressed municipality
benefits because they dropped off the list within the last five years. Those
are Enfield, Killingly, Naugatuck, Plymouth, New Haven, Preston, Stratford, and
Voluntown.