Research Project 1

Through my education at The University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, I had the opportunity to complete fascinating research on a variety of different topics pertaining to human geography, demographics, and environmental concepts. On this page, you will find some of the most important research projects I completed, which are a bit longer and more complex than the assignments, even though some are closely related. 

For this project, I choose to do an in-depth analysis of two cities, and the county they are in. I chose to examine the relationship between population change, mean income change, and poverty in census tracts. The towns of Castle Rock and Parker in Douglas County, Colorado, as well as the census tracts in the county, were the subjects to this examination. The main figures, as well as a brief explanation for each are listed below. First, a population analysis of the two cities were done. As seen, the population significantly increased in these two between the years of 2010 and 2022. The total population growth for Castle Rock was 29,663, and 16,275 people in Parker. Both cities gained many people.  

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Next, the mean income from the cities over the same 2010–2022 time frame was examined. In 2022, the mean income in Castle Rock was 154,734 dollars. This was a 58,124 dollar increase from 96,610 average in 2010. In Parker, the mean income rose from 96,147 dollars to 147,041 dollars. A 50,894-dollar increase. It is very clear these two cities have had their mean household income increase with the population. Both have reached new highs in 2022.

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Now that is known that as the population grows, so does the mean household income in the two cities, we must look at poverty.  Poverty for the census tracts in Douglas County, where these two cities lie are below.  The poverty percentage maps had higher concentrations outside of the Castle Rock and Parker city boundaries. Of course, there are a few exceptions, but this was the general trend. Please note that the city boundaries cut through parts of larger census tracts. It seems that the increase in population and mean income did not necessarily increase poverty within city boundaries, as mentioned, the data format discrepancies prevented a full-scale analysis. However, the low rates are still very evident.