Apartment List based the methodology in this report on what they’ve learned as relevant to Black professionals:  Community & Representation, Economic Opportunity, Housing Opportunity, and Business Environment.

1. The Community & Representation score identifies regions that have a sizable (and growing) Black community that is well-represented in various key occupations. This score considers the share of a city’s population who is Black, whether the Black population has gotten larger or smaller over the past decade, and whether the Black community is proportionally represented in the teachers, doctors, lawyers, and managers who live there.
2. The Economic Opportunity score identifies strong job markets that offer competitive wages for Black professionals. This score considers the employment rate and college graduation rate among Black adults, the median income among Black workers, and income equity – the ratio of Black incomes to non-Black incomes.
3. The Housing Opportunity score measures affordability and equity within local housing markets. This score considers the Black homeownership rate, how that homeownership rate compares to non-Black households, and the Black cost burden rate: the percentages of Black households who spend over 30% of their monthly income on housing costs.
4. The Business Environment score measures the percentage of local businesses that are Black-owned, and similar to the community and representation score, whether the Black ownership is proportional to the overall Black population.

Scores from those four areas, and the individual statistics that comprise them, were weighted and summed to arrive at a final composite score between 0-10. Lower scores indicate a combination of less Black representation, worse economic outcomes for Black households, and greater economic gaps between Black and non-Black individuals.

While the ranking system captures some, but not all of the socio-economic inequalities that exist between races and locations throughout the United States, we feel it’s a paints a fairly accurate picture of the situation in the country’s larger communities.

See more details on the calculations and data.  Click here.   https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1LZ8YGdqkh-pyfQgSgpO0DGGdOzMAklQ5xXTY2o-h1To/edit#gid=0