At CVEP we always keep a regional lens on the Coachella Valley. We see an interwoven tapestry of opportunities and challenges between the cities, unincorporated areas, and tribal nations of our interconnected valley. Business and job potential run throughout our region. Today’s map dismisses typical boundaries and explores the employment landscape from a valley-wide view.
This map shows concentrations of employment in the valley. The colored areas show census block groups with at least 1,000 jobs per square mile. We mapped the density of employment instead of the total number of jobs per census block group to take into account the different area sizes of block groups. This way we start to see employment centers throughout the valley.
Four employment centers stand out and are labeled on the map in rank order. Please note that the numbers indicated for each census block group are not the TOTAL number of jobs. Rather, they represent how many jobs there are per square mile of area. Since many census block group areas are smaller than 1 square mile, the jobs density number will be higher than the actual number of jobs in the block group. For instance, in Center #4, there are an estimated 1,641 jobs in this 0.221 square mile area block group > 1,641/0,221 = 7,409 jobs/per square mile. The density of jobs is what we are expressing here showing the concentration of jobs in a concentrated area.
The highest center, #1, is located around the Desert Regional Medical Center in Palm Springs. No surprise this center is concentrated on the healthcare sector. Center #2 around El Paseo in Palm Desert caters to retail and personal services like Beauty Salons. Center #3 in La Quinta is concentrated on professional service sector businesses like real estate and insurance. And Center #4 in Palm Springs is composed primarily of Leisure and Hospitality businesses.
The tables below show the highest concentrations of businesses and the most common business sectors for each Center.
Block Group 1 – Palm Springs
Block Group 2 – Palm Desert
Block Group 3 – La Quinta
Block Group 4 – Palm Springs
Overall, our valley disproportionately relies on employment in the Leisure and Hospitality sector. But a closer look at the concentrations of businesses exposes a more diverse landscape of types of businesses and industry sectors. Business centers can be identified and encouraged. These can become hubs for transit, and places to encourage higher-density housing nearby for people to be able to live closer to work. We will have to see how the shift to working from home affects the daytime population of these types of centers. But it remains encouraging that these concentrations occur throughout the valley and provide opportunities for our entire regional population.
