3D Map of Dallas Tax Revenue
where are tax dollars coming from?
My friend Owen Wilson-Chavez created this data set after some hubbub on twitter about 3d mapping and tax revenues. He did the work in creating the data set, but I’ve visualized it on my site in order to steal the credit. Because that’s the kind of guy I am.
You can go to this link and move around using the arrow button (at the trop right) under the +/- buttons. (Just click down on the arrow button and move your mouse while holding it down).
Click here to view the map (won’t work on a phone).
Method
Here’s Owen explaining his method:
Using City of Dallas’ Point and Parcel dataset, which combines data from the five county appraisal districts that include properties within the City of Dallas, used the City Taxable Value field for each parcel using the 2017 Certified Appraisal Values to estimate property taxes owed to the City of Dallas in 2017.
Using Tim Whiteaker’s Create Hexagon Tessellation tool, created a hexagonal mesh that covers the City of Dallas (minus Lake Ray Hubbard) in 500ft hexagons.
Performed a spatial join to estimate the total City Taxable Value of all parcels that fall within each hexagon of the city.
With the new Estimated Tax Revenue per hex, used ArcScene to great a Z value field and extrude the data to represent areas based upon their property tax bills.
Findings
Fly around the map yourself, but here are some brief interesting things from looking at the map.
This is not at all meant to be a deep dive analysis into tax revenues, but more an interesting look at how to visualize data. I think a deeper dive would be interesting and necessary.
North Park
The area with the most money going to the city come from North Park.
Uptown
Interestingly, Uptown actually seems to provide more tax value to the city than downtown. Especially the area around the Crescent.
White Rock
White Rock creates no taxable value for the city directly, but obviously it’s one of the greatest assets the city has which indirectly provides quite a lot of tax revenue.
Southern Dallas
The most striking visual is the lack of tax dollars coming from Southern Dallas. It makes us most of our land mass, but too many factors to name here have contributed to its small percentage of overall tax base.
Bishop Arts/Trinity Groves
Bird’s eye view of North Oak Cliff, including Trinity Groves.
Thanks to Owen for creating the set and hope you enjoy. If anyone wants a deeper analysis, let us know.
robert@themap.io
