Tyche Insights - User contributions [en]

Wichita, Kansas LandValuePerAcre

2025-12-15T18:27:18Z

WichitaDataExplorer:

''See Discussion page for additional questions that I'm asking about developing this further''[[File:Wichita, Kansas skyline.jpg|none|thumb|500x500px|Wichita Skyline]]

== Wichita, Kansas Land Value Per Acre Analysis ==
The idea of creating a land value per acre map for Wichita, Kansas and Sedgwick County interests us. We are going to use [[TycheHowTo:CreateValuePerAcreMap|this process]] described in the How-to documentation.
[[File:Wichita LandValuePerAcre Overview.png|none|thumb|600x600px|Wichita Land Value Per Acre Overview]]

== Overview ==
One way to examine the utilization and value of the land use in your community is to create a Total Value Per Acre (TVPA) analysis for your town. The idea is that various areas of your city, town or county contribute to the property tax roll at different rates. Sometimes this contribution is obvious; an undeveloped one-acre parcel of land contributes less tax than a one-acre parcel of developed land. Sometimes the contributions are counterintuitive. A 2-acre property with a two million dollar home might contribute less to the property tax roll than if there were 10 0.2 acre houses on the same property.

The organization [https://www.strongtowns.org/ Strong Towns] has recently popularized the value per acre analysis in a piece that they [https://archive.strongtowns.org/journal/2020/5/5/kansas-citys-fateful-suburban-experiment wrote about Kansas City], scroll down to see the "Value Per Acre" map. In the Kansas City map they note "Where, in modern day Kansas City, is real-estate value most concentrated? We need only map the tax value per acre of properties within city limits to see that Kansas City’s highest-value land uses lie overwhelmingly within the 1910 borders."

Our goal is to create a new layer of "Blocks" where a block is a set of contiguous parcels, usually equal to a city block. For each block we will calculate the area (in acres) of the block, we will compute the sum Total Assessed Value of all of the parcels that make up the block, and lastly we will calculate the (Total Assessed Value / Area) for each block. This value - Total Value Per Acre - will give us an understanding of the relative contribution to the tax roll of each city block. Farmed land will typically have a Total Value Per Acre of < $50,000. The most developed and valuable land will have a Total Value Per Acre of over $500,000. We will then analyze larger trends within the City and look at some examples.

== Data and Process ==
This analysis uses data from the Wichita, Kansas open data site. Specifically we are using the open data parcels found [https://ict-opendata-cityofwichita.hub.arcgis.com/datasets/cc370e96c9944bb2be62fe15964f9cba_4/explore here]. The data vintage is noted as "The Dataset is updated in real time as the City or County updates their records", therefore we are considering the vintage of the source data to be November 2025. The initial parcel table for Sedgwick County contains 238315 records and the resulting Blocks table contains 12,348 records.

We will use the following fields from the source data:

* the spatial object for each parcel boundary
* OBJECTID - we will use this to track the unique block as the parcels are aggregated
* TotVal - the total value (land + improvements) in dollars for each parcel

We followed the process identified in the How-To documentation with one addition. The Wichita parcel geometries had a few geometries (~20) that were bad and prevented some spatial operations within QGIS. We chose to process the data with the advanced setting "Skip (Ignore) Features with Invalid Geometries" when performing the Dissolve and "Join Attributes by Location (Summary)" operations.

From the process we created a spatial table for our analysis, WichitaKS_Blocks_WithSummaryData.shp.

What we end up with are two layers shown in this map - parcel boundaries in brown on the bottom, and block boundaries on the top with no fill and a blue outline, where each block is labeled with its Total Value Per Acre.
[[File:Wichita BlocksAndParcels2.png|none|thumb|750x750px|Wichita Kansas Parcels overlaid with Blocks containing Total Assessed Value Per Acre ($)]]

== Data Downloads ==

[[:File:WichitaKSBlocksWithSummaryData.zip|Download the Block data]]. This is an Esri shape file containing the blocks used in this data story. The shape file, WichitaKS_Blocks_WithSummaryData.shp, has the following structure:

* OBJECTID - a unique ID for each of the 12,348 blocks in the file
* ShapeSTAre - ignore this field
* ShapeSTLen - ignore this field
* AreaAcres - the size of each region object in acres
* TotValAcre - this is the metric used in the maps - (TotVal_Sum / AreaAcres)
* TotVal_Cou - the count of parcels covered by each block
* TotVal_Sum - the sum of the Total Assessed Value of all parcels covered by each block

== Big Picture Maps ==
In any of the images below we have created a thematic map that shows each block shaded by Total Value Per Acre. Blocks with the highest value are Blue, blocks with the lowest value are red:
[[File:BlockLegend.png|none|thumb|271x271px|Wichita Kansas Block Map Legend]]

We can start by looking at the value of property north and south of Highway 54. If you are familiar with Wichita, north of Highway 54 are neighborhoods such as Delano, College Hill, and Crown Heights, and each of these neighborhoods consists of Blocks that have higher Total Value Per Acre scores. South of Highway 54 are neighborhoods such as McCormick, Sunnyside and Hilltop-Jefferson that are a mix of Blocks that range between $250k/acre and $750+k/acre in Total Value. Further South towards East Pawnee St the Block values are typically
[[File:NorthAndSouthOf54.png|none|thumb|900x900px|Block Value per Acre, North and South of Highway 54]]

Neighborhoods such as Orchard Park, Orchard Breeze and Sunflower are interesting to compare. Housing in these neighborhoods developed between the 1920s and 1950s, however Sunflower has a slightly higher property or parcel density (slightly smaller lots). With more housing more lot, the total assessed value is higher for the same acreage. A typical Block in Sunflower will have a Total Value Per Acre of $600k, while a typical block in Orchard Park or Orchard Breeze will have a TVPA of $400k.
[[File:Orchard Sunflower.png|none|thumb|900x900px|Wichita Kansas Comparing Orchard and Sunflower neighborhoods]]

If we look at areas with housing development that occurred in the 1970s, a good sample is in the neighborhoods south of W13th St N. A neighborhood like this has Blocks with high Total Value Per Acre. This housing is relatively new, the lot size is typically around 1/2 to 1/3 of an acre and a significant number of parcels or lots fall on each city block. This leads to Total Value Per Acre by block over $750k and frequently well over $1 million.
[[File:13thAndMaize.png|none|thumb|800x800px|Wichita Kansas Total Value Per Acre around W 13th and Maize Streets]]

Lastly, we can observe neighborhoods such as Power and North Central, each of which have a large number of Blocks that have lower Total Value Per Acre, frequently between $50k and $500k. Heavily built in the 1950s, these neighborhoods have significant numbers of properties that are undeveloped. These lots were never developed, developed then deconstructed, or utilized by adjacent property owners for gardens, parking or other uses. If we think about housing development, these are areas that should be very supportive of infill development which will add housing with no or low infrastructure requirements.
[[File:PowerAndNorthCentral.png|none|thumb|800x800px|Wichita Kansas Total Value Per Acre in the Power and North Central Neighborhoods]]

== Additional Examples ==
When we start to look at property from an overall tax yield perspective, we being to notice interesting things. These are some examples.

At E Blake St and S Market St are two city blocks divided by an alleyway. The block to the west has a Total Value per Acre of $518k; the block to the east has a value that twice as high, $1.02 million. Same neighborhood, same property parcel sizes, same number of parcels on each block (about 10). What is the difference? The block on the east is primarily duplexes. Duplexes drive a higher assessed value and you don't need too many of them to drive significantly higher property tax yield. And duplexes are great starter homes. And duplexes add more housing units to the community.
[[File:SouthMarket EastBlake2.png|none|thumb|623x623px|Wichita KS City Blocks at Market and Blake Streets. Two block boundaries overlaid on top of the respective parcels that make up each block]]
We can look at Total Value Per Acre in affluent areas. Around E 13st St N and N Woodlawn Blvd is an area of upper incomes homes, typically $500-750k homes built between the 1950s and 1970s. These homes have large lot sizes as seen in the picture below.

[[File:13th Woodlawn Imagery.png|thumb|600x600px|Wichita KS around 13th and Woodlawn, showing houses and lot sizes|none]]

When we look at Total Value Per Acre, the value is relatively low. Every block has a TVPA of under $300k which is counterintuitive for an affluent area.

[[File:13th Woodlawn TVPA.png|thumb|600x600px|Wichita KS around 13th and Woodlawn, showing blocks and total value per acre|none]]

Finally, we can study the impact of undeveloped land on Total Value Per Acre for any block. Here are two blocks, divided by an alley at Gilbert and Pershing streets. The western block has a TVPA that is over 1/3 higher than the eastern block. Why? 2 out of 12 parcels that make up the eastern block are undeveloped. The eastern block currently has a Total assessed value of $568 thousand; adding two houses to the two undeveloped parcels would add $150-250k of total assessed value and would bring the TVPA to between $700-$730k, contributing significantly to an increased tax value of this land.
[[File:Gilbert and Pershing2.png|none|thumb|701x701px|Wichita Kansas, comparison of two blocks around Gilbert and Pershing streets]]
== Analyzing Total Value Per Acre by Neighborhood ==
In our analysis above we use neighborhoods to describe the scenarios and differences in Total Value Per Acre as we looked at various city blocks. Then we wondered what would the data look like if we rolled up our analysis by neighborhood. Using the a neighborhood boundary dataset from Zillow that contains 72 neighborhoods for Wichita, we summed up the Total Value Per Acre analysis by neighborhood. We used QGIS' "Join Attributes by Location (Summary)" tool to compare neighborhood boundaries against blocks, and the acreage and total value were summed for each neighborhood. In addition, we counted how many blocks were found in each neighborhood. Then we added in a Total Value Per Acre value for each neighborhood that is simply (Total Appraised Value of all blocks in the neighborhood / Total acres of all blocks in the neighborhood).

This table is fairly large so click "Expand" to see the entire table. Two values you may want to use for sorting include "Total Value Per Acre" and "Total Appraise Value, All Blocks in Neighborhood". This latter value will let you see the aggregate contribution of each neighborhood to the City's property tax roll. You will notice that neighborhoods can have dramatically different Total Values Per Acre. Residential neighborhoods range from over $1 million to under $200k.

There is no blanket statement that can be made about how bad or good a neighborhood is based on its high or low Total Value Per Acre values. There are many reasons why TVPA could be low for a neighborhood such as a large portion of its property being undeveloped. The TVPA for a neighborhood is a starting point for evaluating the neighborhood's contribution to the property tax roll.
{| class="wikitable sortable mw-collapsible mw-collapsed"
|+Total Value Per Acre by Neighborhood
!Name
!Number of Blocks
!Total Acres, All Blocks in Neighborhood
!Total Appraised Value, All Blocks in Neighborhood
!Total Value Per Acre
|-
|Westlink
| align="right" |19
| align="right" |119.766
| $88,890,570
| $742,202
|-
|Village
| align="right" |23
| align="right" |110.491
| $85,654,750
| $775,219
|-
|Uptown
| align="right" |73
| align="right" |107.093
| $78,655,970
| $734,464
|-
|The Elm
| align="right" |48
| align="right" |89.607
| $50,623,030
| $564,945
|-
|Sunnyside
| align="right" |57
| align="right" |129.576
| $88,201,230
| $680,691
|-
|Sunflower
| align="right" |215
| align="right" |742.582
| $457,603,270
| $616,233
|-
|Stanley-Aley
| align="right" |206
| align="right" |751.606
| $324,737,680
| $432,058
|-
|Southwest Village
| align="right" |132
| align="right" |1817.954
| $660,439,350
| $363,287
|-
|Southwest
| align="right" |230
| align="right" |1598.131
| $871,645,400
| $545,415
|-
|South City Community
| align="right" |127
| align="right" |789.999
| $369,294,200
| $467,462
|-
|South Central Improvemen
| align="right" |352
| align="right" |831.97
| $417,844,870
| $502,236
|-
|South Area
| align="right" |108
| align="right" |1683.356
| $409,668,280
| $243,364
|-
|Sleepy Hollow
| align="right" |18
| align="right" |50.223
| $52,831,050
| $1,051,929
|-
|Sherwood Glen
| align="right" |38
| align="right" |465.739
| $183,201,340
| $393,356
|-
|Schweiter East
| align="right" |29
| align="right" |168.082
| $95,972,750
| $570,988
|-
|Schweiter
| align="right" |16
| align="right" |89.844
| $55,739,930
| $620,408
|-
|Rockhurst
| align="right" |6
| align="right" |176.393
| $112,473,720
| $637,631
|-
|Riverside
| align="right" |99
| align="right" |2866.415
| $490,185,730
| $171,010
|-
|Pueblo
| align="right" |180
| align="right" |636.526
| $270,815,370
| $425,458
|-
|Power
| align="right" |53
| align="right" |140.784
| $44,849,220
| $318,568
|-
|Pleasant Valley
| align="right" |21
| align="right" |407.468
| $153,354,900
| $376,361
|-
|Planeview United
| align="right" |32
| align="right" |350.741
| $65,134,150
| $185,704
|-
|Park Meadows
| align="right" |9
| align="right" |206.989
| $147,985,790
| $714,945
|-
|Orchard Park
| align="right" |80
| align="right" |501.143
| $302,742,720
| $604,104
|-
|Orchard Breeze
| align="right" |84
| align="right" |502.086
| $217,992,420
| $434,173
|-
|Northwest Big River
| align="right" |39
| align="right" |242.398
| $179,748,600
| $741,543
|-
|Northeast Millair
| align="right" |36
| align="right" |567.426
| $167,865,430
| $295,837
|-
|Northeast Heights
| align="right" |72
| align="right" |1157.015
| $258,852,810
| $223,725
|-
|North Riverside
| align="right" |112
| align="right" |441.23
| $312,246,810
| $707,674
|-
|North Central
| align="right" |129
| align="right" |276.435
| $99,061,830
| $358,355
|-
|New Salem
| align="right" |39
| align="right" |65.477
| $34,239,910
| $522,930
|-
|Murdock
| align="right" |64
| align="right" |132.463
| $51,898,610
| $391,797
|-
|Meadowlark
| align="right" |26
| align="right" |223.66
| $104,277,400
| $466,232
|-
|Mead
| align="right" |90
| align="right" |310.737
| $179,728,080
| $578,393
|-
|Mccormick
| align="right" |207
| align="right" |488.474
| $232,834,910
| $476,658
|-
|Mcadams
| align="right" |92
| align="right" |269.262
| $92,294,380
| $342,768
|-
|Matlock Heights
| align="right" |48
| align="right" |174.084
| $54,410,590
| $312,554
|-
|Maple Hills
| align="right" |9
| align="right" |190.202
| $106,535,480
| $560,118
|-
|Macdonald
| align="right" |22
| align="right" |318.808
| $195,793,310
| $614,142
|-
|Longview
| align="right" |16
| align="right" |46.09
| $30,303,820
| $657,492
|-
|Linwood
| align="right" |71
| align="right" |124.7
| $62,239,370
| $499,113
|-
|Lambsdale
| align="right" |9
| align="right" |49.668
| $34,208,990
| $688,753
|-
|La Placita Park
| align="right" |32
| align="right" |234.934
| $149,640,920
| $636,949
|-
|Ken-Mar
| align="right" |40
| align="right" |168.936
| $74,948,720
| $443,652
|-
|Kellogg School
| align="right" |156
| align="right" |288.63
| $225,730,860
| $782,077
|-
|K-15
| align="right" |32
| align="right" |291.324
| $95,779,350
| $328,773
|-
|Jones Park
| align="right" |22
| align="right" |83.375
| $28,632,710
| $343,421
|-
|Indian Hills Riverbend
| align="right" |50
| align="right" |361.937
| $222,209,050
| $613,944
|-
|Indian Hills
| align="right" |36
| align="right" |501.851
| $169,291,130
| $337,333
|-
|Historic Midtown
| align="right" |305
| align="right" |881.556
| $793,988,220
| $900,667
|-
|Hilltop - Jefferson
| align="right" |58
| align="right" |213.846
| $188,347,700
| $880,763
|-
|Hilltop
| align="right" |10
| align="right" |118.039
| $43,639,820
| $369,707
|-
|Harrison Park Rk
| align="right" |7
| align="right" |239.923
| $165,321,230
| $689,060
|-
|Grandview Heights
| align="right" |30
| align="right" |269.269
| $120,303,050
| $446,776
|-
|Fairmount
| align="right" |37
| align="right" |240.454
| $102,234,490
| $425,173
|-
|Fabrique
| align="right" |60
| align="right" |225.131
| $136,851,260
| $607,874
|-
|Eastridge
| align="right" |80
| align="right" |439.586
| $278,168,020
| $632,795
|-
|East Mt Vernon Na
| align="right" |33
| align="right" |164.669
| $94,346,650
| $572,947
|-
|East Front
| align="right" |56
| align="right" |93.169
| $79,122,980
| $849,241
|-
|Delano Township
| align="right" |3
| align="right" |1075.363
| $34,582,470
| $32,159
|-
|Delano
| align="right" |340
| align="right" |693.706
| $757,175,340
| $1,091,493
|-
|Crown Heights South
| align="right" |23
| align="right" |116.229
| $116,287,240
| $1,000,501
|-
|Crown Heights
| align="right" |34
| align="right" |116.322
| $135,749,090
| $1,167,011
|-
|Courtland
| align="right" |18
| align="right" |96.755
| $73,787,420
| $762,621
|-
|Country Overlook
| align="right" |44
| align="right" |153.105
| $92,453,020
| $603,854
|-
|Cottonwood Village
| align="right" |12
| align="right" |214.843
| $190,305,490
| $885,789
|-
|Comotara Mainsgate Villa
| align="right" |6
| align="right" |214.845
| $148,152,130
| $689,577
|-
|College Hill
| align="right" |127
| align="right" |466.853
| $621,765,490
| $1,331,823
|-
|Chisholm Creek
| align="right" |139
| align="right" |1915.331
| $1,243,587,910
| $649,281
|-
|Central 2000
| align="right" |56
| align="right" |104.306
| $34,903,160
| $334,623
|-
|Brookhollow
| align="right" |11
| align="right" |78.473
| $92,747,710
| $1,181,906
|-
|Benjamin Hills
| align="right" |87
| align="right" |823.901
| $414,041,240
| $502,538
|}

== Conclusion ==
We put together this Total Value Per Acre analysis as an example of how we can analyze the areas of our city and county to understand the property tax value of different areas. We are only showing a few examples of how anyone can overlay this data on a map. We encourage anyone to look at the results and understand how we can use this data to provide guidance on our housing development decisions and policy.

== Credits ==
This data story and its content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution license.

Persons or organizations that Share or Adapt this content should provide Attribution that provides appropriate credit, which includes:

* © Copyright 2025
* Tyche Insights, P.B.C.
* [[User:WichitaDataExplorer|WichitaDataExplorer]]

For example, a data product or service that utilizes this article could include attribution such as:

"Portions derived from 'Wichita, Kansas Land Value Per Acre', © Copyright 2025 by Tyche Insights, P.B.C., WichitaDataExplorer & licensed under the CC BY 4.0 license"

[[Category:Wichita_KS]]

[[Category:TotalValuePerAcre]]
[[Category:DevelopableLand]]

Wichita, Kansas LandValuePerAcre

2025-12-04T16:41:23Z

WichitaDataExplorer: added a cautionary comment about neighborhoods and TVPA

''First draft done. See Discussion page for additional questions that I'm asking about developing this further''[[File:Wichita, Kansas skyline.jpg|none|thumb|500x500px|Wichita Skyline]]

== Wichita, Kansas Land Value Per Acre Analysis ==
The idea of creating a land value per acre map for Wichita, Kansas and Sedgwick County interests us. We are going to use [[TycheHowTo:CreateValuePerAcreMap|this process]] described in the How-to documentation.
[[File:Wichita LandValuePerAcre Overview.png|none|thumb|600x600px|Wichita Land Value Per Acre Overview]]

== Overview ==
One way to examine the utilization and value of the land use in your community is to create a Total Value Per Acre (TVPA) analysis for your town. The idea is that various areas of your city, town or county contribute to the property tax roll at different rates. Sometimes this contribution is obvious; an undeveloped one-acre parcel of land contributes less tax than a one-acre parcel of developed land. Sometimes the contributions are counterintuitive. A 2-acre property with a two million dollar home might contribute less to the property tax roll than if there were 10 0.2 acre houses on the same property.

The organization [https://www.strongtowns.org/ Strong Towns] has recently popularized the value per acre analysis in a piece that they [https://archive.strongtowns.org/journal/2020/5/5/kansas-citys-fateful-suburban-experiment wrote about Kansas City], scroll down to see the "Value Per Acre" map. In the Kansas City map they note "Where, in modern day Kansas City, is real-estate value most concentrated? We need only map the tax value per acre of properties within city limits to see that Kansas City’s highest-value land uses lie overwhelmingly within the 1910 borders."

Our goal is to create a new layer of "Blocks" where a block is a set of contiguous parcels, usually equal to a city block. For each block we will calculate the area (in acres) of the block, we will compute the sum Total Assessed Value of all of the parcels that make up the block, and lastly we will calculate the (Total Assessed Value / Area) for each block. This value - Total Value Per Acre - will give us an understanding of the relative contribution to the tax roll of each city block. Farmed land will typically have a Total Value Per Acre of < $50,000. The most developed and valuable land will have a Total Value Per Acre of over $500,000. We will then analyze larger trends within the City and look at some examples.

== Data and Process ==
This analysis uses data from the Wichita, Kansas open data site. Specifically we are using the open data parcels found [https://ict-opendata-cityofwichita.hub.arcgis.com/datasets/cc370e96c9944bb2be62fe15964f9cba_4/explore here]. The data vintage is noted as "The Dataset is updated in real time as the City or County updates their records", therefore we are considering the vintage of the source data to be November 2025. The initial parcel table for Sedgwick County contains 238315 records and the resulting Blocks table contains 12,348 records.

We will use the following fields from the source data:

* the spatial object for each parcel boundary
* OBJECTID - we will use this to track the unique block as the parcels are aggregated
* TotVal - the total value (land + improvements) in dollars for each parcel

We followed the process identified in the How-To documentation with one addition. The Wichita parcel geometries had a few geometries (~20) that were bad and prevented some spatial operations within QGIS. We chose to process the data with the advanced setting "Skip (Ignore) Features with Invalid Geometries" when performing the Dissolve and "Join Attributes by Location (Summary)" operations.

From the process we created a spatial table for our analysis, WichitaKS_Blocks_WithSummaryData.shp.

What we end up with are two layers shown in this map - parcel boundaries in brown on the bottom, and block boundaries on the top with no fill and a blue outline, where each block is labeled with its Total Value Per Acre.
[[File:Wichita BlocksAndParcels2.png|none|thumb|750x750px|Wichita Kansas Parcels overlaid with Blocks containing Total Assessed Value Per Acre ($)]]

== Data Downloads ==

[[:File:WichitaKSBlocksWithSummaryData.zip|Download the Block data]]. This is an Esri shape file containing the blocks used in this data story. The shape file, WichitaKS_Blocks_WithSummaryData.shp, has the following structure:

* OBJECTID - a unique ID for each of the 12,348 blocks in the file
* ShapeSTAre - ignore this field
* ShapeSTLen - ignore this field
* AreaAcres - the size of each region object in acres
* TotValAcre - this is the metric used in the maps - (TotVal_Sum / AreaAcres)
* TotVal_Cou - the count of parcels covered by each block
* TotVal_Sum - the sum of the Total Assessed Value of all parcels covered by each block

== Big Picture Maps ==
In any of the images below we have created a thematic map that shows each block shaded by Total Value Per Acre. Blocks with the highest value are Blue, blocks with the lowest value are red:
[[File:BlockLegend.png|none|thumb|271x271px|Wichita Kansas Block Map Legend]]

We can start by looking at the value of property north and south of Highway 54. If you are familiar with Wichita, north of Highway 54 are neighborhoods such as Delano, College Hill, and Crown Heights, and each of these neighborhoods consists of Blocks that have higher Total Value Per Acre scores. South of Highway 54 are neighborhoods such as McCormick, Sunnyside and Hilltop-Jefferson that are a mix of Blocks that range between $250k/acre and $750+k/acre in Total Value. Further South towards East Pawnee St the Block values are typically
[[File:NorthAndSouthOf54.png|none|thumb|900x900px|Block Value per Acre, North and South of Highway 54]]

Neighborhoods such as Orchard Park, Orchard Breeze and Sunflower are interesting to compare. Housing in these neighborhoods developed between the 1920s and 1950s, however Sunflower has a slightly higher property or parcel density (slightly smaller lots). With more housing more lot, the total assessed value is higher for the same acreage. A typical Block in Sunflower will have a Total Value Per Acre of $600k, while a typical block in Orchard Park or Orchard Breeze will have a TVPA of $400k.
[[File:Orchard Sunflower.png|none|thumb|900x900px|Wichita Kansas Comparing Orchard and Sunflower neighborhoods]]

If we look at areas with housing development that occurred in the 1970s, a good sample is in the neighborhoods south of W13th St N. A neighborhood like this has Blocks with high Total Value Per Acre. This housing is relatively new, the lot size is typically around 1/2 to 1/3 of an acre and a significant number of parcels or lots fall on each city block. This leads to Total Value Per Acre by block over $750k and frequently well over $1 million.
[[File:13thAndMaize.png|none|thumb|800x800px|Wichita Kansas Total Value Per Acre around W 13th and Maize Streets]]

Lastly, we can observe neighborhoods such as Power and North Central, each of which have a large number of Blocks that have lower Total Value Per Acre, frequently between $50k and $500k. Heavily built in the 1950s, these neighborhoods have significant numbers of properties that are undeveloped. These lots were never developed, developed then deconstructed, or utilized by adjacent property owners for gardens, parking or other uses. If we think about housing development, these are areas that should be very supportive of infill development which will add housing with no or low infrastructure requirements.
[[File:PowerAndNorthCentral.png|none|thumb|800x800px|Wichita Kansas Total Value Per Acre in the Power and North Central Neighborhoods]]

== Additional Examples ==
When we start to look at property from an overall tax yield perspective, we being to notice interesting things. These are some examples.

At E Blake St and S Market St are two city blocks divided by an alleyway. The block to the west has a Total Value per Acre of $518k; the block to the east has a value that twice as high, $1.02 million. Same neighborhood, same property parcel sizes, same number of parcels on each block (about 10). What is the difference? The block on the east is primarily duplexes. Duplexes drive a higher assessed value and you don't need too many of them to drive significantly higher property tax yield. And duplexes are great starter homes. And duplexes add more housing units to the community.
[[File:SouthMarket EastBlake2.png|none|thumb|623x623px|Wichita KS City Blocks at Market and Blake Streets. Two block boundaries overlaid on top of the respective parcels that make up each block]]
We can look at Total Value Per Acre in affluent areas. Around E 13st St N and N Woodlawn Blvd is an area of upper incomes homes, typically $500-750k homes built between the 1950s and 1970s. These homes have large lot sizes as seen in the picture below.

[[File:13th Woodlawn Imagery.png|thumb|600x600px|Wichita KS around 13th and Woodlawn, showing houses and lot sizes|none]]

When we look at Total Value Per Acre, the value is relatively low. Every block has a TVPA of under $300k which is counterintuitive for an affluent area.

[[File:13th Woodlawn TVPA.png|thumb|600x600px|Wichita KS around 13th and Woodlawn, showing blocks and total value per acre|none]]

Finally, we can study the impact of undeveloped land on Total Value Per Acre for any block. Here are two blocks, divided by an alley at Gilbert and Pershing streets. The western block has a TVPA that is over 1/3 higher than the eastern block. Why? 2 out of 12 parcels that make up the eastern block are undeveloped. The eastern block currently has a Total assessed value of $568 thousand; adding two houses to the two undeveloped parcels would add $150-250k of total assessed value and would bring the TVPA to between $700-$730k, contributing significantly to an increased tax value of this land.
[[File:Gilbert and Pershing2.png|none|thumb|701x701px|Wichita Kansas, comparison of two blocks around Gilbert and Pershing streets]]
== Analyzing Total Value Per Acre by Neighborhood ==
In our analysis above we use neighborhoods to describe the scenarios and differences in Total Value Per Acre as we looked at various city blocks. Then we wondered what would the data look like if we rolled up our analysis by neighborhood. Using the a neighborhood boundary dataset from Zillow that contains 72 neighborhoods for Wichita, we summed up the Total Value Per Acre analysis by neighborhood. We used QGIS' "Join Attributes by Location (Summary)" tool to compare neighborhood boundaries against blocks, and the acreage and total value were summed for each neighborhood. In addition, we counted how many blocks were found in each neighborhood. Then we added in a Total Value Per Acre value for each neighborhood that is simply (Total Appraised Value of all blocks in the neighborhood / Total acres of all blocks in the neighborhood).

This table is fairly large so click "Expand" to see the entire table. Two values you may want to use for sorting include "Total Value Per Acre" and "Total Appraise Value, All Blocks in Neighborhood". This latter value will let you see the aggregate contribution of each neighborhood to the City's property tax roll. You will notice that neighborhoods can have dramatically different Total Values Per Acre. Residential neighborhoods range from over $1 million to under $200k.

There is no blanket statement that can be made about how bad or good a neighborhood is based on its high or low Total Value Per Acre values. There are many reasons why TVPA could be low for a neighborhood such as a large portion of its property being undeveloped. The TVPA for a neighborhood is a starting point for evaluating the neighborhood's contribution to the property tax roll.
{| class="wikitable sortable mw-collapsible mw-collapsed"
|+Total Value Per Acre by Neighborhood
!Name
!Number of Blocks
!Total Acres, All Blocks in Neighborhood
!Total Appraised Value, All Blocks in Neighborhood
!Total Value Per Acre
|-
|Westlink
| align="right" |19
| align="right" |119.766
| $88,890,570
| $742,202
|-
|Village
| align="right" |23
| align="right" |110.491
| $85,654,750
| $775,219
|-
|Uptown
| align="right" |73
| align="right" |107.093
| $78,655,970
| $734,464
|-
|The Elm
| align="right" |48
| align="right" |89.607
| $50,623,030
| $564,945
|-
|Sunnyside
| align="right" |57
| align="right" |129.576
| $88,201,230
| $680,691
|-
|Sunflower
| align="right" |215
| align="right" |742.582
| $457,603,270
| $616,233
|-
|Stanley-Aley
| align="right" |206
| align="right" |751.606
| $324,737,680
| $432,058
|-
|Southwest Village
| align="right" |132
| align="right" |1817.954
| $660,439,350
| $363,287
|-
|Southwest
| align="right" |230
| align="right" |1598.131
| $871,645,400
| $545,415
|-
|South City Community
| align="right" |127
| align="right" |789.999
| $369,294,200
| $467,462
|-
|South Central Improvemen
| align="right" |352
| align="right" |831.97
| $417,844,870
| $502,236
|-
|South Area
| align="right" |108
| align="right" |1683.356
| $409,668,280
| $243,364
|-
|Sleepy Hollow
| align="right" |18
| align="right" |50.223
| $52,831,050
| $1,051,929
|-
|Sherwood Glen
| align="right" |38
| align="right" |465.739
| $183,201,340
| $393,356
|-
|Schweiter East
| align="right" |29
| align="right" |168.082
| $95,972,750
| $570,988
|-
|Schweiter
| align="right" |16
| align="right" |89.844
| $55,739,930
| $620,408
|-
|Rockhurst
| align="right" |6
| align="right" |176.393
| $112,473,720
| $637,631
|-
|Riverside
| align="right" |99
| align="right" |2866.415
| $490,185,730
| $171,010
|-
|Pueblo
| align="right" |180
| align="right" |636.526
| $270,815,370
| $425,458
|-
|Power
| align="right" |53
| align="right" |140.784
| $44,849,220
| $318,568
|-
|Pleasant Valley
| align="right" |21
| align="right" |407.468
| $153,354,900
| $376,361
|-
|Planeview United
| align="right" |32
| align="right" |350.741
| $65,134,150
| $185,704
|-
|Park Meadows
| align="right" |9
| align="right" |206.989
| $147,985,790
| $714,945
|-
|Orchard Park
| align="right" |80
| align="right" |501.143
| $302,742,720
| $604,104
|-
|Orchard Breeze
| align="right" |84
| align="right" |502.086
| $217,992,420
| $434,173
|-
|Northwest Big River
| align="right" |39
| align="right" |242.398
| $179,748,600
| $741,543
|-
|Northeast Millair
| align="right" |36
| align="right" |567.426
| $167,865,430
| $295,837
|-
|Northeast Heights
| align="right" |72
| align="right" |1157.015
| $258,852,810
| $223,725
|-
|North Riverside
| align="right" |112
| align="right" |441.23
| $312,246,810
| $707,674
|-
|North Central
| align="right" |129
| align="right" |276.435
| $99,061,830
| $358,355
|-
|New Salem
| align="right" |39
| align="right" |65.477
| $34,239,910
| $522,930
|-
|Murdock
| align="right" |64
| align="right" |132.463
| $51,898,610
| $391,797
|-
|Meadowlark
| align="right" |26
| align="right" |223.66
| $104,277,400
| $466,232
|-
|Mead
| align="right" |90
| align="right" |310.737
| $179,728,080
| $578,393
|-
|Mccormick
| align="right" |207
| align="right" |488.474
| $232,834,910
| $476,658
|-
|Mcadams
| align="right" |92
| align="right" |269.262
| $92,294,380
| $342,768
|-
|Matlock Heights
| align="right" |48
| align="right" |174.084
| $54,410,590
| $312,554
|-
|Maple Hills
| align="right" |9
| align="right" |190.202
| $106,535,480
| $560,118
|-
|Macdonald
| align="right" |22
| align="right" |318.808
| $195,793,310
| $614,142
|-
|Longview
| align="right" |16
| align="right" |46.09
| $30,303,820
| $657,492
|-
|Linwood
| align="right" |71
| align="right" |124.7
| $62,239,370
| $499,113
|-
|Lambsdale
| align="right" |9
| align="right" |49.668
| $34,208,990
| $688,753
|-
|La Placita Park
| align="right" |32
| align="right" |234.934
| $149,640,920
| $636,949
|-
|Ken-Mar
| align="right" |40
| align="right" |168.936
| $74,948,720
| $443,652
|-
|Kellogg School
| align="right" |156
| align="right" |288.63
| $225,730,860
| $782,077
|-
|K-15
| align="right" |32
| align="right" |291.324
| $95,779,350
| $328,773
|-
|Jones Park
| align="right" |22
| align="right" |83.375
| $28,632,710
| $343,421
|-
|Indian Hills Riverbend
| align="right" |50
| align="right" |361.937
| $222,209,050
| $613,944
|-
|Indian Hills
| align="right" |36
| align="right" |501.851
| $169,291,130
| $337,333
|-
|Historic Midtown
| align="right" |305
| align="right" |881.556
| $793,988,220
| $900,667
|-
|Hilltop - Jefferson
| align="right" |58
| align="right" |213.846
| $188,347,700
| $880,763
|-
|Hilltop
| align="right" |10
| align="right" |118.039
| $43,639,820
| $369,707
|-
|Harrison Park Rk
| align="right" |7
| align="right" |239.923
| $165,321,230
| $689,060
|-
|Grandview Heights
| align="right" |30
| align="right" |269.269
| $120,303,050
| $446,776
|-
|Fairmount
| align="right" |37
| align="right" |240.454
| $102,234,490
| $425,173
|-
|Fabrique
| align="right" |60
| align="right" |225.131
| $136,851,260
| $607,874
|-
|Eastridge
| align="right" |80
| align="right" |439.586
| $278,168,020
| $632,795
|-
|East Mt Vernon Na
| align="right" |33
| align="right" |164.669
| $94,346,650
| $572,947
|-
|East Front
| align="right" |56
| align="right" |93.169
| $79,122,980
| $849,241
|-
|Delano Township
| align="right" |3
| align="right" |1075.363
| $34,582,470
| $32,159
|-
|Delano
| align="right" |340
| align="right" |693.706
| $757,175,340
| $1,091,493
|-
|Crown Heights South
| align="right" |23
| align="right" |116.229
| $116,287,240
| $1,000,501
|-
|Crown Heights
| align="right" |34
| align="right" |116.322
| $135,749,090
| $1,167,011
|-
|Courtland
| align="right" |18
| align="right" |96.755
| $73,787,420
| $762,621
|-
|Country Overlook
| align="right" |44
| align="right" |153.105
| $92,453,020
| $603,854
|-
|Cottonwood Village
| align="right" |12
| align="right" |214.843
| $190,305,490
| $885,789
|-
|Comotara Mainsgate Villa
| align="right" |6
| align="right" |214.845
| $148,152,130
| $689,577
|-
|College Hill
| align="right" |127
| align="right" |466.853
| $621,765,490
| $1,331,823
|-
|Chisholm Creek
| align="right" |139
| align="right" |1915.331
| $1,243,587,910
| $649,281
|-
|Central 2000
| align="right" |56
| align="right" |104.306
| $34,903,160
| $334,623
|-
|Brookhollow
| align="right" |11
| align="right" |78.473
| $92,747,710
| $1,181,906
|-
|Benjamin Hills
| align="right" |87
| align="right" |823.901
| $414,041,240
| $502,538
|}

== Conclusion ==
We put together this Total Value Per Acre analysis as an example of how we can analyze the areas of our city and county to understand the property tax value of different areas. We are only showing a few examples of how anyone can overlay this data on a map. We encourage anyone to look at the results and understand how we can use this data to provide guidance on our housing development decisions and policy.

== Credits ==
This data story and its content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution license.

Persons or organizations that Share or Adapt this content should provide Attribution that provides appropriate credit, which includes:

* © Copyright 2025
* Tyche Insights, P.B.C.
* [[User:WichitaDataExplorer|WichitaDataExplorer]]

For example, a data product or service that utilizes this article could include attribution such as:

"Portions derived from 'Wichita, Kansas Land Value Per Acre', © Copyright 2025 by Tyche Insights, P.B.C., WichitaDataExplorer & licensed under the CC BY 4.0 license"

[[Category:Wichita_KS]]

[[Category:TotalValuePerAcre]]
[[Category:DevelopableLand]]

Wichita, Kansas LandValuePerAcre

2025-12-03T22:49:07Z

WichitaDataExplorer: /* Additional Examples */

''First draft done. See Discussion page for additional questions that I'm asking about developing this further''[[File:Wichita, Kansas skyline.jpg|none|thumb|500x500px|Wichita Skyline]]

== Wichita, Kansas Land Value Per Acre Analysis ==
The idea of creating a land value per acre map for Wichita, Kansas and Sedgwick County interests us. We are going to use [[TycheHowTo:CreateValuePerAcreMap|this process]] described in the How-to documentation.
[[File:Wichita LandValuePerAcre Overview.png|none|thumb|600x600px|Wichita Land Value Per Acre Overview]]

== Overview ==
One way to examine the utilization and value of the land use in your community is to create a Total Value Per Acre (TVPA) analysis for your town. The idea is that various areas of your city, town or county contribute to the property tax roll at different rates. Sometimes this contribution is obvious; an undeveloped one-acre parcel of land contributes less tax than a one-acre parcel of developed land. Sometimes the contributions are counterintuitive. A 2-acre property with a two million dollar home might contribute less to the property tax roll than if there were 10 0.2 acre houses on the same property.

The organization [https://www.strongtowns.org/ Strong Towns] has recently popularized the value per acre analysis in a piece that they [https://archive.strongtowns.org/journal/2020/5/5/kansas-citys-fateful-suburban-experiment wrote about Kansas City], scroll down to see the "Value Per Acre" map. In the Kansas City map they note "Where, in modern day Kansas City, is real-estate value most concentrated? We need only map the tax value per acre of properties within city limits to see that Kansas City’s highest-value land uses lie overwhelmingly within the 1910 borders."

Our goal is to create a new layer of "Blocks" where a block is a set of contiguous parcels, usually equal to a city block. For each block we will calculate the area (in acres) of the block, we will compute the sum Total Assessed Value of all of the parcels that make up the block, and lastly we will calculate the (Total Assessed Value / Area) for each block. This value - Total Value Per Acre - will give us an understanding of the relative contribution to the tax roll of each city block. Farmed land will typically have a Total Value Per Acre of < $50,000. The most developed and valuable land will have a Total Value Per Acre of over $500,000. We will then analyze larger trends within the City and look at some examples.

== Data and Process ==
This analysis uses data from the Wichita, Kansas open data site. Specifically we are using the open data parcels found [https://ict-opendata-cityofwichita.hub.arcgis.com/datasets/cc370e96c9944bb2be62fe15964f9cba_4/explore here]. The data vintage is noted as "The Dataset is updated in real time as the City or County updates their records", therefore we are considering the vintage of the source data to be November 2025. The initial parcel table for Sedgwick County contains 238315 records and the resulting Blocks table contains 12,348 records.

We will use the following fields from the source data:

* the spatial object for each parcel boundary
* OBJECTID - we will use this to track the unique block as the parcels are aggregated
* TotVal - the total value (land + improvements) in dollars for each parcel

We followed the process identified in the How-To documentation with one addition. The Wichita parcel geometries had a few geometries (~20) that were bad and prevented some spatial operations within QGIS. We chose to process the data with the advanced setting "Skip (Ignore) Features with Invalid Geometries" when performing the Dissolve and "Join Attributes by Location (Summary)" operations.

From the process we created a spatial table for our analysis, WichitaKS_Blocks_WithSummaryData.shp.

What we end up with are two layers shown in this map - parcel boundaries in brown on the bottom, and block boundaries on the top with no fill and a blue outline, where each block is labeled with its Total Value Per Acre.
[[File:Wichita BlocksAndParcels2.png|none|thumb|750x750px|Wichita Kansas Parcels overlaid with Blocks containing Total Assessed Value Per Acre ($)]]

== Data Downloads ==

[[:File:WichitaKSBlocksWithSummaryData.zip|Download the Block data]]. This is an Esri shape file containing the blocks used in this data story. The shape file, WichitaKS_Blocks_WithSummaryData.shp, has the following structure:

* OBJECTID - a unique ID for each of the 12,348 blocks in the file
* ShapeSTAre - ignore this field
* ShapeSTLen - ignore this field
* AreaAcres - the size of each region object in acres
* TotValAcre - this is the metric used in the maps - (TotVal_Sum / AreaAcres)
* TotVal_Cou - the count of parcels covered by each block
* TotVal_Sum - the sum of the Total Assessed Value of all parcels covered by each block

== Big Picture Maps ==
In any of the images below we have created a thematic map that shows each block shaded by Total Value Per Acre. Blocks with the highest value are Blue, blocks with the lowest value are red:
[[File:BlockLegend.png|none|thumb|271x271px|Wichita Kansas Block Map Legend]]

We can start by looking at the value of property north and south of Highway 54. If you are familiar with Wichita, north of Highway 54 are neighborhoods such as Delano, College Hill, and Crown Heights, and each of these neighborhoods consists of Blocks that have higher Total Value Per Acre scores. South of Highway 54 are neighborhoods such as McCormick, Sunnyside and Hilltop-Jefferson that are a mix of Blocks that range between $250k/acre and $750+k/acre in Total Value. Further South towards East Pawnee St the Block values are typically
[[File:NorthAndSouthOf54.png|none|thumb|900x900px|Block Value per Acre, North and South of Highway 54]]

Neighborhoods such as Orchard Park, Orchard Breeze and Sunflower are interesting to compare. Housing in these neighborhoods developed between the 1920s and 1950s, however Sunflower has a slightly higher property or parcel density (slightly smaller lots). With more housing more lot, the total assessed value is higher for the same acreage. A typical Block in Sunflower will have a Total Value Per Acre of $600k, while a typical block in Orchard Park or Orchard Breeze will have a TVPA of $400k.
[[File:Orchard Sunflower.png|none|thumb|900x900px|Wichita Kansas Comparing Orchard and Sunflower neighborhoods]]

If we look at areas with housing development that occurred in the 1970s, a good sample is in the neighborhoods south of W13th St N. A neighborhood like this has Blocks with high Total Value Per Acre. This housing is relatively new, the lot size is typically around 1/2 to 1/3 of an acre and a significant number of parcels or lots fall on each city block. This leads to Total Value Per Acre by block over $750k and frequently well over $1 million.
[[File:13thAndMaize.png|none|thumb|800x800px|Wichita Kansas Total Value Per Acre around W 13th and Maize Streets]]

Lastly, we can observe neighborhoods such as Power and North Central, each of which have a large number of Blocks that have lower Total Value Per Acre, frequently between $50k and $500k. Heavily built in the 1950s, these neighborhoods have significant numbers of properties that are undeveloped. These lots were never developed, developed then deconstructed, or utilized by adjacent property owners for gardens, parking or other uses. If we think about housing development, these are areas that should be very supportive of infill development which will add housing with no or low infrastructure requirements.
[[File:PowerAndNorthCentral.png|none|thumb|800x800px|Wichita Kansas Total Value Per Acre in the Power and North Central Neighborhoods]]

== Additional Examples ==
When we start to look at property from an overall tax yield perspective, we being to notice interesting things. These are some examples.

At E Blake St and S Market St are two city blocks divided by an alleyway. The block to the west has a Total Value per Acre of $518k; the block to the east has a value that twice as high, $1.02 million. Same neighborhood, same property parcel sizes, same number of parcels on each block (about 10). What is the difference? The block on the east is primarily duplexes. Duplexes drive a higher assessed value and you don't need too many of them to drive significantly higher property tax yield. And duplexes are great starter homes. And duplexes add more housing units to the community.
[[File:SouthMarket EastBlake2.png|none|thumb|623x623px|Wichita KS City Blocks at Market and Blake Streets. Two block boundaries overlaid on top of the respective parcels that make up each block]]
We can look at Total Value Per Acre in affluent areas. Around E 13st St N and N Woodlawn Blvd is an area of upper incomes homes, typically $500-750k homes built between the 1950s and 1970s. These homes have large lot sizes as seen in the picture below.

[[File:13th Woodlawn Imagery.png|thumb|600x600px|Wichita KS around 13th and Woodlawn, showing houses and lot sizes|none]]

When we look at Total Value Per Acre, the value is relatively low. Every block has a TVPA of under $300k which is counterintuitive for an affluent area.

[[File:13th Woodlawn TVPA.png|thumb|600x600px|Wichita KS around 13th and Woodlawn, showing blocks and total value per acre|none]]

Finally, we can study the impact of undeveloped land on Total Value Per Acre for any block. Here are two blocks, divided by an alley at Gilbert and Pershing streets. The western block has a TVPA that is over 1/3 higher than the eastern block. Why? 2 out of 12 parcels that make up the eastern block are undeveloped. The eastern block currently has a Total assessed value of $568 thousand; adding two houses to the two undeveloped parcels would add $150-250k of total assessed value and would bring the TVPA to between $700-$730k, contributing significantly to an increased tax value of this land.
[[File:Gilbert and Pershing2.png|none|thumb|701x701px|Wichita Kansas, comparison of two blocks around Gilbert and Pershing streets]]
== Analyzing Total Value Per Acre by Neighborhood ==
In our analysis above we use neighborhoods to describe the scenarios and differences in Total Value Per Acre as we looked at various city blocks. Then we wondered what would the data look like if we rolled up our analysis by neighborhood. Using the a neighborhood boundary dataset from Zillow that contains 72 neighborhoods for Wichita, we summed up the Total Value Per Acre analysis by neighborhood. We used QGIS' "Join Attributes by Location (Summary)" tool to compare neighborhood boundaries against blocks, and the acreage and total value were summed for each neighborhood. In addition, we counted how many blocks were found in each neighborhood. Then we added in a Total Value Per Acre value for each neighborhood that is simply (Total Appraised Value of all blocks in the neighborhood / Total acres of all blocks in the neighborhood).

This table is fairly large so click "Expand" to see the entire table. Two values you may want to use for sorting include "Total Value Per Acre" and "Total Appraise Value, All Blocks in Neighborhood". This latter value will let you see the aggregate contribution of each neighborhood to the City's property tax roll. You will notice that neighborhoods can have dramatically different Total Values Per Acre. Residential neighborhoods range from over $1 million to under $200k.
{| class="wikitable sortable mw-collapsible mw-collapsed"
|+Total Value Per Acre by Neighborhood
!Name
!Number of Blocks
!Total Acres, All Blocks in Neighborhood
!Total Appraised Value, All Blocks in Neighborhood
!Total Value Per Acre
|-
|Westlink
| align="right" |19
| align="right" |119.766
| $88,890,570
| $742,202
|-
|Village
| align="right" |23
| align="right" |110.491
| $85,654,750
| $775,219
|-
|Uptown
| align="right" |73
| align="right" |107.093
| $78,655,970
| $734,464
|-
|The Elm
| align="right" |48
| align="right" |89.607
| $50,623,030
| $564,945
|-
|Sunnyside
| align="right" |57
| align="right" |129.576
| $88,201,230
| $680,691
|-
|Sunflower
| align="right" |215
| align="right" |742.582
| $457,603,270
| $616,233
|-
|Stanley-Aley
| align="right" |206
| align="right" |751.606
| $324,737,680
| $432,058
|-
|Southwest Village
| align="right" |132
| align="right" |1817.954
| $660,439,350
| $363,287
|-
|Southwest
| align="right" |230
| align="right" |1598.131
| $871,645,400
| $545,415
|-
|South City Community
| align="right" |127
| align="right" |789.999
| $369,294,200
| $467,462
|-
|South Central Improvemen
| align="right" |352
| align="right" |831.97
| $417,844,870
| $502,236
|-
|South Area
| align="right" |108
| align="right" |1683.356
| $409,668,280
| $243,364
|-
|Sleepy Hollow
| align="right" |18
| align="right" |50.223
| $52,831,050
| $1,051,929
|-
|Sherwood Glen
| align="right" |38
| align="right" |465.739
| $183,201,340
| $393,356
|-
|Schweiter East
| align="right" |29
| align="right" |168.082
| $95,972,750
| $570,988
|-
|Schweiter
| align="right" |16
| align="right" |89.844
| $55,739,930
| $620,408
|-
|Rockhurst
| align="right" |6
| align="right" |176.393
| $112,473,720
| $637,631
|-
|Riverside
| align="right" |99
| align="right" |2866.415
| $490,185,730
| $171,010
|-
|Pueblo
| align="right" |180
| align="right" |636.526
| $270,815,370
| $425,458
|-
|Power
| align="right" |53
| align="right" |140.784
| $44,849,220
| $318,568
|-
|Pleasant Valley
| align="right" |21
| align="right" |407.468
| $153,354,900
| $376,361
|-
|Planeview United
| align="right" |32
| align="right" |350.741
| $65,134,150
| $185,704
|-
|Park Meadows
| align="right" |9
| align="right" |206.989
| $147,985,790
| $714,945
|-
|Orchard Park
| align="right" |80
| align="right" |501.143
| $302,742,720
| $604,104
|-
|Orchard Breeze
| align="right" |84
| align="right" |502.086
| $217,992,420
| $434,173
|-
|Northwest Big River
| align="right" |39
| align="right" |242.398
| $179,748,600
| $741,543
|-
|Northeast Millair
| align="right" |36
| align="right" |567.426
| $167,865,430
| $295,837
|-
|Northeast Heights
| align="right" |72
| align="right" |1157.015
| $258,852,810
| $223,725
|-
|North Riverside
| align="right" |112
| align="right" |441.23
| $312,246,810
| $707,674
|-
|North Central
| align="right" |129
| align="right" |276.435
| $99,061,830
| $358,355
|-
|New Salem
| align="right" |39
| align="right" |65.477
| $34,239,910
| $522,930
|-
|Murdock
| align="right" |64
| align="right" |132.463
| $51,898,610
| $391,797
|-
|Meadowlark
| align="right" |26
| align="right" |223.66
| $104,277,400
| $466,232
|-
|Mead
| align="right" |90
| align="right" |310.737
| $179,728,080
| $578,393
|-
|Mccormick
| align="right" |207
| align="right" |488.474
| $232,834,910
| $476,658
|-
|Mcadams
| align="right" |92
| align="right" |269.262
| $92,294,380
| $342,768
|-
|Matlock Heights
| align="right" |48
| align="right" |174.084
| $54,410,590
| $312,554
|-
|Maple Hills
| align="right" |9
| align="right" |190.202
| $106,535,480
| $560,118
|-
|Macdonald
| align="right" |22
| align="right" |318.808
| $195,793,310
| $614,142
|-
|Longview
| align="right" |16
| align="right" |46.09
| $30,303,820
| $657,492
|-
|Linwood
| align="right" |71
| align="right" |124.7
| $62,239,370
| $499,113
|-
|Lambsdale
| align="right" |9
| align="right" |49.668
| $34,208,990
| $688,753
|-
|La Placita Park
| align="right" |32
| align="right" |234.934
| $149,640,920
| $636,949
|-
|Ken-Mar
| align="right" |40
| align="right" |168.936
| $74,948,720
| $443,652
|-
|Kellogg School
| align="right" |156
| align="right" |288.63
| $225,730,860
| $782,077
|-
|K-15
| align="right" |32
| align="right" |291.324
| $95,779,350
| $328,773
|-
|Jones Park
| align="right" |22
| align="right" |83.375
| $28,632,710
| $343,421
|-
|Indian Hills Riverbend
| align="right" |50
| align="right" |361.937
| $222,209,050
| $613,944
|-
|Indian Hills
| align="right" |36
| align="right" |501.851
| $169,291,130
| $337,333
|-
|Historic Midtown
| align="right" |305
| align="right" |881.556
| $793,988,220
| $900,667
|-
|Hilltop - Jefferson
| align="right" |58
| align="right" |213.846
| $188,347,700
| $880,763
|-
|Hilltop
| align="right" |10
| align="right" |118.039
| $43,639,820
| $369,707
|-
|Harrison Park Rk
| align="right" |7
| align="right" |239.923
| $165,321,230
| $689,060
|-
|Grandview Heights
| align="right" |30
| align="right" |269.269
| $120,303,050
| $446,776
|-
|Fairmount
| align="right" |37
| align="right" |240.454
| $102,234,490
| $425,173
|-
|Fabrique
| align="right" |60
| align="right" |225.131
| $136,851,260
| $607,874
|-
|Eastridge
| align="right" |80
| align="right" |439.586
| $278,168,020
| $632,795
|-
|East Mt Vernon Na
| align="right" |33
| align="right" |164.669
| $94,346,650
| $572,947
|-
|East Front
| align="right" |56
| align="right" |93.169
| $79,122,980
| $849,241
|-
|Delano Township
| align="right" |3
| align="right" |1075.363
| $34,582,470
| $32,159
|-
|Delano
| align="right" |340
| align="right" |693.706
| $757,175,340
| $1,091,493
|-
|Crown Heights South
| align="right" |23
| align="right" |116.229
| $116,287,240
| $1,000,501
|-
|Crown Heights
| align="right" |34
| align="right" |116.322
| $135,749,090
| $1,167,011
|-
|Courtland
| align="right" |18
| align="right" |96.755
| $73,787,420
| $762,621
|-
|Country Overlook
| align="right" |44
| align="right" |153.105
| $92,453,020
| $603,854
|-
|Cottonwood Village
| align="right" |12
| align="right" |214.843
| $190,305,490
| $885,789
|-
|Comotara Mainsgate Villa
| align="right" |6
| align="right" |214.845
| $148,152,130
| $689,577
|-
|College Hill
| align="right" |127
| align="right" |466.853
| $621,765,490
| $1,331,823
|-
|Chisholm Creek
| align="right" |139
| align="right" |1915.331
| $1,243,587,910
| $649,281
|-
|Central 2000
| align="right" |56
| align="right" |104.306
| $34,903,160
| $334,623
|-
|Brookhollow
| align="right" |11
| align="right" |78.473
| $92,747,710
| $1,181,906
|-
|Benjamin Hills
| align="right" |87
| align="right" |823.901
| $414,041,240
| $502,538
|}

== Conclusion ==
We put together this Total Value Per Acre analysis as an example of how we can analyze the areas of our city and county to understand the property tax value of different areas. We are only showing a few examples of how anyone can overlay this data on a map. We encourage anyone to look at the results and understand how we can use this data to provide guidance on our housing development decisions and policy.

== Credits ==
This data story and its content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution license.

Persons or organizations that Share or Adapt this content should provide Attribution that provides appropriate credit, which includes:

* © Copyright 2025
* Tyche Insights, P.B.C.
* [[User:WichitaDataExplorer|WichitaDataExplorer]]

For example, a data product or service that utilizes this article could include attribution such as:

"Portions derived from 'Wichita, Kansas Land Value Per Acre', © Copyright 2025 by Tyche Insights, P.B.C., WichitaDataExplorer & licensed under the CC BY 4.0 license"

[[Category:Wichita_KS]]

[[Category:TotalValuePerAcre]]
[[Category:DevelopableLand]]

Wichita, Kansas LandValuePerAcre

2025-12-03T22:47:34Z

WichitaDataExplorer: /* Analyzing Total Value Per Acre by Neighborhood */

''First draft done. See Discussion page for additional questions that I'm asking about developing this further''[[File:Wichita, Kansas skyline.jpg|none|thumb|500x500px|Wichita Skyline]]

== Wichita, Kansas Land Value Per Acre Analysis ==
The idea of creating a land value per acre map for Wichita, Kansas and Sedgwick County interests us. We are going to use [[TycheHowTo:CreateValuePerAcreMap|this process]] described in the How-to documentation.
[[File:Wichita LandValuePerAcre Overview.png|none|thumb|600x600px|Wichita Land Value Per Acre Overview]]

== Overview ==
One way to examine the utilization and value of the land use in your community is to create a Total Value Per Acre (TVPA) analysis for your town. The idea is that various areas of your city, town or county contribute to the property tax roll at different rates. Sometimes this contribution is obvious; an undeveloped one-acre parcel of land contributes less tax than a one-acre parcel of developed land. Sometimes the contributions are counterintuitive. A 2-acre property with a two million dollar home might contribute less to the property tax roll than if there were 10 0.2 acre houses on the same property.

The organization [https://www.strongtowns.org/ Strong Towns] has recently popularized the value per acre analysis in a piece that they [https://archive.strongtowns.org/journal/2020/5/5/kansas-citys-fateful-suburban-experiment wrote about Kansas City], scroll down to see the "Value Per Acre" map. In the Kansas City map they note "Where, in modern day Kansas City, is real-estate value most concentrated? We need only map the tax value per acre of properties within city limits to see that Kansas City’s highest-value land uses lie overwhelmingly within the 1910 borders."

Our goal is to create a new layer of "Blocks" where a block is a set of contiguous parcels, usually equal to a city block. For each block we will calculate the area (in acres) of the block, we will compute the sum Total Assessed Value of all of the parcels that make up the block, and lastly we will calculate the (Total Assessed Value / Area) for each block. This value - Total Value Per Acre - will give us an understanding of the relative contribution to the tax roll of each city block. Farmed land will typically have a Total Value Per Acre of < $50,000. The most developed and valuable land will have a Total Value Per Acre of over $500,000. We will then analyze larger trends within the City and look at some examples.

== Data and Process ==
This analysis uses data from the Wichita, Kansas open data site. Specifically we are using the open data parcels found [https://ict-opendata-cityofwichita.hub.arcgis.com/datasets/cc370e96c9944bb2be62fe15964f9cba_4/explore here]. The data vintage is noted as "The Dataset is updated in real time as the City or County updates their records", therefore we are considering the vintage of the source data to be November 2025. The initial parcel table for Sedgwick County contains 238315 records and the resulting Blocks table contains 12,348 records.

We will use the following fields from the source data:

* the spatial object for each parcel boundary
* OBJECTID - we will use this to track the unique block as the parcels are aggregated
* TotVal - the total value (land + improvements) in dollars for each parcel

We followed the process identified in the How-To documentation with one addition. The Wichita parcel geometries had a few geometries (~20) that were bad and prevented some spatial operations within QGIS. We chose to process the data with the advanced setting "Skip (Ignore) Features with Invalid Geometries" when performing the Dissolve and "Join Attributes by Location (Summary)" operations.

From the process we created a spatial table for our analysis, WichitaKS_Blocks_WithSummaryData.shp.

What we end up with are two layers shown in this map - parcel boundaries in brown on the bottom, and block boundaries on the top with no fill and a blue outline, where each block is labeled with its Total Value Per Acre.
[[File:Wichita BlocksAndParcels2.png|none|thumb|750x750px|Wichita Kansas Parcels overlaid with Blocks containing Total Assessed Value Per Acre ($)]]

== Data Downloads ==

[[:File:WichitaKSBlocksWithSummaryData.zip|Download the Block data]]. This is an Esri shape file containing the blocks used in this data story. The shape file, WichitaKS_Blocks_WithSummaryData.shp, has the following structure:

* OBJECTID - a unique ID for each of the 12,348 blocks in the file
* ShapeSTAre - ignore this field
* ShapeSTLen - ignore this field
* AreaAcres - the size of each region object in acres
* TotValAcre - this is the metric used in the maps - (TotVal_Sum / AreaAcres)
* TotVal_Cou - the count of parcels covered by each block
* TotVal_Sum - the sum of the Total Assessed Value of all parcels covered by each block

== Big Picture Maps ==
In any of the images below we have created a thematic map that shows each block shaded by Total Value Per Acre. Blocks with the highest value are Blue, blocks with the lowest value are red:
[[File:BlockLegend.png|none|thumb|271x271px|Wichita Kansas Block Map Legend]]

We can start by looking at the value of property north and south of Highway 54. If you are familiar with Wichita, north of Highway 54 are neighborhoods such as Delano, College Hill, and Crown Heights, and each of these neighborhoods consists of Blocks that have higher Total Value Per Acre scores. South of Highway 54 are neighborhoods such as McCormick, Sunnyside and Hilltop-Jefferson that are a mix of Blocks that range between $250k/acre and $750+k/acre in Total Value. Further South towards East Pawnee St the Block values are typically
[[File:NorthAndSouthOf54.png|none|thumb|900x900px|Block Value per Acre, North and South of Highway 54]]

Neighborhoods such as Orchard Park, Orchard Breeze and Sunflower are interesting to compare. Housing in these neighborhoods developed between the 1920s and 1950s, however Sunflower has a slightly higher property or parcel density (slightly smaller lots). With more housing more lot, the total assessed value is higher for the same acreage. A typical Block in Sunflower will have a Total Value Per Acre of $600k, while a typical block in Orchard Park or Orchard Breeze will have a TVPA of $400k.
[[File:Orchard Sunflower.png|none|thumb|900x900px|Wichita Kansas Comparing Orchard and Sunflower neighborhoods]]

If we look at areas with housing development that occurred in the 1970s, a good sample is in the neighborhoods south of W13th St N. A neighborhood like this has Blocks with high Total Value Per Acre. This housing is relatively new, the lot size is typically around 1/2 to 1/3 of an acre and a significant number of parcels or lots fall on each city block. This leads to Total Value Per Acre by block over $750k and frequently well over $1 million.
[[File:13thAndMaize.png|none|thumb|800x800px|Wichita Kansas Total Value Per Acre around W 13th and Maize Streets]]

Lastly, we can observe neighborhoods such as Power and North Central, each of which have a large number of Blocks that have lower Total Value Per Acre, frequently between $50k and $500k. Heavily built in the 1950s, these neighborhoods have significant numbers of properties that are undeveloped. These lots were never developed, developed then deconstructed, or utilized by adjacent property owners for gardens, parking or other uses. If we think about housing development, these are areas that should be very supportive of infill development which will add housing with no or low infrastructure requirements.
[[File:PowerAndNorthCentral.png|none|thumb|800x800px|Wichita Kansas Total Value Per Acre in the Power and North Central Neighborhoods]]

== Additional Examples ==
When we start to look at property from an overall tax yield perspective, we being to notice interesting things. These are some examples.

At E Blake St and S Market St are two city blocks divided by an alleyway. The block to the west has a Total Value per Acre of $518k; the block to the east has a value that twice as high, $1.02 million. Same neighborhood, same property parcel sizes, same number of parcels on each block (about 10). What is the difference? The block on the east is primarily duplexes. Duplexes drive a higher assessed value and you don't need too many of them to drive significantly higher property tax yield. And duplexes are great starter homes. And duplexes add more housing units to the community.
[[File:SouthMarket EastBlake2.png|none|thumb|623x623px|Wichita KS City Blocks at Market and Blake Streets. Two block boundaries overlaid on top of the respective parcels that make up each block]]
We can look at Total Value Per Acre in affluent areas. Around E 13st St N and N Woodlawn Blvd is an area of upper incomes homes, typically $500-750k homes built between the 1950s and 1970s. These homes have large lot sizes as seen in the picture below.

[[File:13th Woodlawn Imagery.png|thumb|400x400px|Wichita KS around 13th and Woodlawn, showing houses and lot sizes|none]]

When we look at Total Value Per Acre, the value is astonishingly low. Every block has a TVPA of under $300k which may be surprising for affluent areas.

[[File:13th Woodlawn TVPA.png|thumb|400x400px|Wichita KS around 13th and Woodlawn, showing blocks and total value per acre|none]]

Finally, we can study the impact of undeveloped land on Total Value Per Acre for any block. Here are two blocks, divided by an alley at Gilbert and Pershing streets. The western block has a TVPA that is over 1/3 higher than the eastern block. Why? 2 out of 12 parcels that make up the eastern block are undeveloped. The eastern block currently has a Total assessed value of $568 thousand; adding two houses to the two undeveloped parcels would add $150-250k of total assessed value and would bring the TVPA to between $700-$730k, contributing significantly to an increased tax value of this land.
[[File:Gilbert and Pershing2.png|none|thumb|701x701px|Wichita Kansas, comparison of two blocks around Gilbert and Pershing streets]]
== Analyzing Total Value Per Acre by Neighborhood ==
In our analysis above we use neighborhoods to describe the scenarios and differences in Total Value Per Acre as we looked at various city blocks. Then we wondered what would the data look like if we rolled up our analysis by neighborhood. Using the a neighborhood boundary dataset from Zillow that contains 72 neighborhoods for Wichita, we summed up the Total Value Per Acre analysis by neighborhood. We used QGIS' "Join Attributes by Location (Summary)" tool to compare neighborhood boundaries against blocks, and the acreage and total value were summed for each neighborhood. In addition, we counted how many blocks were found in each neighborhood. Then we added in a Total Value Per Acre value for each neighborhood that is simply (Total Appraised Value of all blocks in the neighborhood / Total acres of all blocks in the neighborhood).

This table is fairly large so click "Expand" to see the entire table. Two values you may want to use for sorting include "Total Value Per Acre" and "Total Appraise Value, All Blocks in Neighborhood". This latter value will let you see the aggregate contribution of each neighborhood to the City's property tax roll. You will notice that neighborhoods can have dramatically different Total Values Per Acre. Residential neighborhoods range from over $1 million to under $200k.
{| class="wikitable sortable mw-collapsible mw-collapsed"
|+Total Value Per Acre by Neighborhood
!Name
!Number of Blocks
!Total Acres, All Blocks in Neighborhood
!Total Appraised Value, All Blocks in Neighborhood
!Total Value Per Acre
|-
|Westlink
| align="right" |19
| align="right" |119.766
| $88,890,570
| $742,202
|-
|Village
| align="right" |23
| align="right" |110.491
| $85,654,750
| $775,219
|-
|Uptown
| align="right" |73
| align="right" |107.093
| $78,655,970
| $734,464
|-
|The Elm
| align="right" |48
| align="right" |89.607
| $50,623,030
| $564,945
|-
|Sunnyside
| align="right" |57
| align="right" |129.576
| $88,201,230
| $680,691
|-
|Sunflower
| align="right" |215
| align="right" |742.582
| $457,603,270
| $616,233
|-
|Stanley-Aley
| align="right" |206
| align="right" |751.606
| $324,737,680
| $432,058
|-
|Southwest Village
| align="right" |132
| align="right" |1817.954
| $660,439,350
| $363,287
|-
|Southwest
| align="right" |230
| align="right" |1598.131
| $871,645,400
| $545,415
|-
|South City Community
| align="right" |127
| align="right" |789.999
| $369,294,200
| $467,462
|-
|South Central Improvemen
| align="right" |352
| align="right" |831.97
| $417,844,870
| $502,236
|-
|South Area
| align="right" |108
| align="right" |1683.356
| $409,668,280
| $243,364
|-
|Sleepy Hollow
| align="right" |18
| align="right" |50.223
| $52,831,050
| $1,051,929
|-
|Sherwood Glen
| align="right" |38
| align="right" |465.739
| $183,201,340
| $393,356
|-
|Schweiter East
| align="right" |29
| align="right" |168.082
| $95,972,750
| $570,988
|-
|Schweiter
| align="right" |16
| align="right" |89.844
| $55,739,930
| $620,408
|-
|Rockhurst
| align="right" |6
| align="right" |176.393
| $112,473,720
| $637,631
|-
|Riverside
| align="right" |99
| align="right" |2866.415
| $490,185,730
| $171,010
|-
|Pueblo
| align="right" |180
| align="right" |636.526
| $270,815,370
| $425,458
|-
|Power
| align="right" |53
| align="right" |140.784
| $44,849,220
| $318,568
|-
|Pleasant Valley
| align="right" |21
| align="right" |407.468
| $153,354,900
| $376,361
|-
|Planeview United
| align="right" |32
| align="right" |350.741
| $65,134,150
| $185,704
|-
|Park Meadows
| align="right" |9
| align="right" |206.989
| $147,985,790
| $714,945
|-
|Orchard Park
| align="right" |80
| align="right" |501.143
| $302,742,720
| $604,104
|-
|Orchard Breeze
| align="right" |84
| align="right" |502.086
| $217,992,420
| $434,173
|-
|Northwest Big River
| align="right" |39
| align="right" |242.398
| $179,748,600
| $741,543
|-
|Northeast Millair
| align="right" |36
| align="right" |567.426
| $167,865,430
| $295,837
|-
|Northeast Heights
| align="right" |72
| align="right" |1157.015
| $258,852,810
| $223,725
|-
|North Riverside
| align="right" |112
| align="right" |441.23
| $312,246,810
| $707,674
|-
|North Central
| align="right" |129
| align="right" |276.435
| $99,061,830
| $358,355
|-
|New Salem
| align="right" |39
| align="right" |65.477
| $34,239,910
| $522,930
|-
|Murdock
| align="right" |64
| align="right" |132.463
| $51,898,610
| $391,797
|-
|Meadowlark
| align="right" |26
| align="right" |223.66
| $104,277,400
| $466,232
|-
|Mead
| align="right" |90
| align="right" |310.737
| $179,728,080
| $578,393
|-
|Mccormick
| align="right" |207
| align="right" |488.474
| $232,834,910
| $476,658
|-
|Mcadams
| align="right" |92
| align="right" |269.262
| $92,294,380
| $342,768
|-
|Matlock Heights
| align="right" |48
| align="right" |174.084
| $54,410,590
| $312,554
|-
|Maple Hills
| align="right" |9
| align="right" |190.202
| $106,535,480
| $560,118
|-
|Macdonald
| align="right" |22
| align="right" |318.808
| $195,793,310
| $614,142
|-
|Longview
| align="right" |16
| align="right" |46.09
| $30,303,820
| $657,492
|-
|Linwood
| align="right" |71
| align="right" |124.7
| $62,239,370
| $499,113
|-
|Lambsdale
| align="right" |9
| align="right" |49.668
| $34,208,990
| $688,753
|-
|La Placita Park
| align="right" |32
| align="right" |234.934
| $149,640,920
| $636,949
|-
|Ken-Mar
| align="right" |40
| align="right" |168.936
| $74,948,720
| $443,652
|-
|Kellogg School
| align="right" |156
| align="right" |288.63
| $225,730,860
| $782,077
|-
|K-15
| align="right" |32
| align="right" |291.324
| $95,779,350
| $328,773
|-
|Jones Park
| align="right" |22
| align="right" |83.375
| $28,632,710
| $343,421
|-
|Indian Hills Riverbend
| align="right" |50
| align="right" |361.937
| $222,209,050
| $613,944
|-
|Indian Hills
| align="right" |36
| align="right" |501.851
| $169,291,130
| $337,333
|-
|Historic Midtown
| align="right" |305
| align="right" |881.556
| $793,988,220
| $900,667
|-
|Hilltop - Jefferson
| align="right" |58
| align="right" |213.846
| $188,347,700
| $880,763
|-
|Hilltop
| align="right" |10
| align="right" |118.039
| $43,639,820
| $369,707
|-
|Harrison Park Rk
| align="right" |7
| align="right" |239.923
| $165,321,230
| $689,060
|-
|Grandview Heights
| align="right" |30
| align="right" |269.269
| $120,303,050
| $446,776
|-
|Fairmount
| align="right" |37
| align="right" |240.454
| $102,234,490
| $425,173
|-
|Fabrique
| align="right" |60
| align="right" |225.131
| $136,851,260
| $607,874
|-
|Eastridge
| align="right" |80
| align="right" |439.586
| $278,168,020
| $632,795
|-
|East Mt Vernon Na
| align="right" |33
| align="right" |164.669
| $94,346,650
| $572,947
|-
|East Front
| align="right" |56
| align="right" |93.169
| $79,122,980
| $849,241
|-
|Delano Township
| align="right" |3
| align="right" |1075.363
| $34,582,470
| $32,159
|-
|Delano
| align="right" |340
| align="right" |693.706
| $757,175,340
| $1,091,493
|-
|Crown Heights South
| align="right" |23
| align="right" |116.229
| $116,287,240
| $1,000,501
|-
|Crown Heights
| align="right" |34
| align="right" |116.322
| $135,749,090
| $1,167,011
|-
|Courtland
| align="right" |18
| align="right" |96.755
| $73,787,420
| $762,621
|-
|Country Overlook
| align="right" |44
| align="right" |153.105
| $92,453,020
| $603,854
|-
|Cottonwood Village
| align="right" |12
| align="right" |214.843
| $190,305,490
| $885,789
|-
|Comotara Mainsgate Villa
| align="right" |6
| align="right" |214.845
| $148,152,130
| $689,577
|-
|College Hill
| align="right" |127
| align="right" |466.853
| $621,765,490
| $1,331,823
|-
|Chisholm Creek
| align="right" |139
| align="right" |1915.331
| $1,243,587,910
| $649,281
|-
|Central 2000
| align="right" |56
| align="right" |104.306
| $34,903,160
| $334,623
|-
|Brookhollow
| align="right" |11
| align="right" |78.473
| $92,747,710
| $1,181,906
|-
|Benjamin Hills
| align="right" |87
| align="right" |823.901
| $414,041,240
| $502,538
|}

== Conclusion ==
We put together this Total Value Per Acre analysis as an example of how we can analyze the areas of our city and county to understand the property tax value of different areas. We are only showing a few examples of how anyone can overlay this data on a map. We encourage anyone to look at the results and understand how we can use this data to provide guidance on our housing development decisions and policy.

== Credits ==
This data story and its content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution license.

Persons or organizations that Share or Adapt this content should provide Attribution that provides appropriate credit, which includes:

* © Copyright 2025
* Tyche Insights, P.B.C.
* [[User:WichitaDataExplorer|WichitaDataExplorer]]

For example, a data product or service that utilizes this article could include attribution such as:

"Portions derived from 'Wichita, Kansas Land Value Per Acre', © Copyright 2025 by Tyche Insights, P.B.C., WichitaDataExplorer & licensed under the CC BY 4.0 license"

[[Category:Wichita_KS]]

[[Category:TotalValuePerAcre]]
[[Category:DevelopableLand]]

Wichita, Kansas LandValuePerAcre

2025-12-03T22:46:11Z

WichitaDataExplorer: added a better picture for the Gilbert and Pershing scenario

''First draft done. See Discussion page for additional questions that I'm asking about developing this further''[[File:Wichita, Kansas skyline.jpg|none|thumb|500x500px|Wichita Skyline]]

== Wichita, Kansas Land Value Per Acre Analysis ==
The idea of creating a land value per acre map for Wichita, Kansas and Sedgwick County interests us. We are going to use [[TycheHowTo:CreateValuePerAcreMap|this process]] described in the How-to documentation.
[[File:Wichita LandValuePerAcre Overview.png|none|thumb|600x600px|Wichita Land Value Per Acre Overview]]

== Overview ==
One way to examine the utilization and value of the land use in your community is to create a Total Value Per Acre (TVPA) analysis for your town. The idea is that various areas of your city, town or county contribute to the property tax roll at different rates. Sometimes this contribution is obvious; an undeveloped one-acre parcel of land contributes less tax than a one-acre parcel of developed land. Sometimes the contributions are counterintuitive. A 2-acre property with a two million dollar home might contribute less to the property tax roll than if there were 10 0.2 acre houses on the same property.

The organization [https://www.strongtowns.org/ Strong Towns] has recently popularized the value per acre analysis in a piece that they [https://archive.strongtowns.org/journal/2020/5/5/kansas-citys-fateful-suburban-experiment wrote about Kansas City], scroll down to see the "Value Per Acre" map. In the Kansas City map they note "Where, in modern day Kansas City, is real-estate value most concentrated? We need only map the tax value per acre of properties within city limits to see that Kansas City’s highest-value land uses lie overwhelmingly within the 1910 borders."

Our goal is to create a new layer of "Blocks" where a block is a set of contiguous parcels, usually equal to a city block. For each block we will calculate the area (in acres) of the block, we will compute the sum Total Assessed Value of all of the parcels that make up the block, and lastly we will calculate the (Total Assessed Value / Area) for each block. This value - Total Value Per Acre - will give us an understanding of the relative contribution to the tax roll of each city block. Farmed land will typically have a Total Value Per Acre of < $50,000. The most developed and valuable land will have a Total Value Per Acre of over $500,000. We will then analyze larger trends within the City and look at some examples.

== Data and Process ==
This analysis uses data from the Wichita, Kansas open data site. Specifically we are using the open data parcels found [https://ict-opendata-cityofwichita.hub.arcgis.com/datasets/cc370e96c9944bb2be62fe15964f9cba_4/explore here]. The data vintage is noted as "The Dataset is updated in real time as the City or County updates their records", therefore we are considering the vintage of the source data to be November 2025. The initial parcel table for Sedgwick County contains 238315 records and the resulting Blocks table contains 12,348 records.

We will use the following fields from the source data:

* the spatial object for each parcel boundary
* OBJECTID - we will use this to track the unique block as the parcels are aggregated
* TotVal - the total value (land + improvements) in dollars for each parcel

We followed the process identified in the How-To documentation with one addition. The Wichita parcel geometries had a few geometries (~20) that were bad and prevented some spatial operations within QGIS. We chose to process the data with the advanced setting "Skip (Ignore) Features with Invalid Geometries" when performing the Dissolve and "Join Attributes by Location (Summary)" operations.

From the process we created a spatial table for our analysis, WichitaKS_Blocks_WithSummaryData.shp.

What we end up with are two layers shown in this map - parcel boundaries in brown on the bottom, and block boundaries on the top with no fill and a blue outline, where each block is labeled with its Total Value Per Acre.
[[File:Wichita BlocksAndParcels2.png|none|thumb|750x750px|Wichita Kansas Parcels overlaid with Blocks containing Total Assessed Value Per Acre ($)]]

== Data Downloads ==

[[:File:WichitaKSBlocksWithSummaryData.zip|Download the Block data]]. This is an Esri shape file containing the blocks used in this data story. The shape file, WichitaKS_Blocks_WithSummaryData.shp, has the following structure:

* OBJECTID - a unique ID for each of the 12,348 blocks in the file
* ShapeSTAre - ignore this field
* ShapeSTLen - ignore this field
* AreaAcres - the size of each region object in acres
* TotValAcre - this is the metric used in the maps - (TotVal_Sum / AreaAcres)
* TotVal_Cou - the count of parcels covered by each block
* TotVal_Sum - the sum of the Total Assessed Value of all parcels covered by each block

== Big Picture Maps ==
In any of the images below we have created a thematic map that shows each block shaded by Total Value Per Acre. Blocks with the highest value are Blue, blocks with the lowest value are red:
[[File:BlockLegend.png|none|thumb|271x271px|Wichita Kansas Block Map Legend]]

We can start by looking at the value of property north and south of Highway 54. If you are familiar with Wichita, north of Highway 54 are neighborhoods such as Delano, College Hill, and Crown Heights, and each of these neighborhoods consists of Blocks that have higher Total Value Per Acre scores. South of Highway 54 are neighborhoods such as McCormick, Sunnyside and Hilltop-Jefferson that are a mix of Blocks that range between $250k/acre and $750+k/acre in Total Value. Further South towards East Pawnee St the Block values are typically
[[File:NorthAndSouthOf54.png|none|thumb|900x900px|Block Value per Acre, North and South of Highway 54]]

Neighborhoods such as Orchard Park, Orchard Breeze and Sunflower are interesting to compare. Housing in these neighborhoods developed between the 1920s and 1950s, however Sunflower has a slightly higher property or parcel density (slightly smaller lots). With more housing more lot, the total assessed value is higher for the same acreage. A typical Block in Sunflower will have a Total Value Per Acre of $600k, while a typical block in Orchard Park or Orchard Breeze will have a TVPA of $400k.
[[File:Orchard Sunflower.png|none|thumb|900x900px|Wichita Kansas Comparing Orchard and Sunflower neighborhoods]]

If we look at areas with housing development that occurred in the 1970s, a good sample is in the neighborhoods south of W13th St N. A neighborhood like this has Blocks with high Total Value Per Acre. This housing is relatively new, the lot size is typically around 1/2 to 1/3 of an acre and a significant number of parcels or lots fall on each city block. This leads to Total Value Per Acre by block over $750k and frequently well over $1 million.
[[File:13thAndMaize.png|none|thumb|800x800px|Wichita Kansas Total Value Per Acre around W 13th and Maize Streets]]

Lastly, we can observe neighborhoods such as Power and North Central, each of which have a large number of Blocks that have lower Total Value Per Acre, frequently between $50k and $500k. Heavily built in the 1950s, these neighborhoods have significant numbers of properties that are undeveloped. These lots were never developed, developed then deconstructed, or utilized by adjacent property owners for gardens, parking or other uses. If we think about housing development, these are areas that should be very supportive of infill development which will add housing with no or low infrastructure requirements.
[[File:PowerAndNorthCentral.png|none|thumb|800x800px|Wichita Kansas Total Value Per Acre in the Power and North Central Neighborhoods]]

== Additional Examples ==
When we start to look at property from an overall tax yield perspective, we being to notice interesting things. These are some examples.

At E Blake St and S Market St are two city blocks divided by an alleyway. The block to the west has a Total Value per Acre of $518k; the block to the east has a value that twice as high, $1.02 million. Same neighborhood, same property parcel sizes, same number of parcels on each block (about 10). What is the difference? The block on the east is primarily duplexes. Duplexes drive a higher assessed value and you don't need too many of them to drive significantly higher property tax yield. And duplexes are great starter homes. And duplexes add more housing units to the community.
[[File:SouthMarket EastBlake2.png|none|thumb|623x623px|Wichita KS City Blocks at Market and Blake Streets. Two block boundaries overlaid on top of the respective parcels that make up each block]]
We can look at Total Value Per Acre in affluent areas. Around E 13st St N and N Woodlawn Blvd is an area of upper incomes homes, typically $500-750k homes built between the 1950s and 1970s. These homes have large lot sizes as seen in the picture below.

[[File:13th Woodlawn Imagery.png|thumb|400x400px|Wichita KS around 13th and Woodlawn, showing houses and lot sizes|none]]

When we look at Total Value Per Acre, the value is astonishingly low. Every block has a TVPA of under $300k which may be surprising for affluent areas.

[[File:13th Woodlawn TVPA.png|thumb|400x400px|Wichita KS around 13th and Woodlawn, showing blocks and total value per acre|none]]

Finally, we can study the impact of undeveloped land on Total Value Per Acre for any block. Here are two blocks, divided by an alley at Gilbert and Pershing streets. The western block has a TVPA that is over 1/3 higher than the eastern block. Why? 2 out of 12 parcels that make up the eastern block are undeveloped. The eastern block currently has a Total assessed value of $568 thousand; adding two houses to the two undeveloped parcels would add $150-250k of total assessed value and would bring the TVPA to between $700-$730k, contributing significantly to an increased tax value of this land.
[[File:Gilbert and Pershing2.png|none|thumb|701x701px|Wichita Kansas, comparison of two blocks around Gilbert and Pershing streets]]
== Analyzing Total Value Per Acre by Neighborhood ==
In our analysis above we use neighborhoods to describe the scenarios and differences in Total Value Per Acre as we looked at various city blocks. Then we wondered what would the data look like if we rolled up our analysis by neighborhood. Using the a neighborhood boundary dataset from Zillow that contains 72 neighborhoods for Wichita, we summed up the Total Value Per Acre analysis by neighborhood. We used QGIS' "Join Attributes by Location (Summary)" tool to compare neighborhood boundaries against blocks, and the acreage and total value were summed for each neighborhood. In addition, we counted how many blocks were found in each neighborhood. Then we added in a Total Value Per Acre value for each neighborhood that is simply (Total Appraised Value of all blocks in the neighborhood / Total acres of all blocks in the neighborhood).

This table is fairly large so click "Expand" to see the entire table. Two values you may want to use for sorting include "Total Value Per Acre" and "Total Appraise Value, All Blocks in Neighborhood". This latter value will let you see the aggregate contribution of each neighborhood to the City's property tax roll.
{| class="wikitable sortable mw-collapsible mw-collapsed"
|+Total Value Per Acre by Neighborhood
!Name
!Number of Blocks
!Total Acres, All Blocks in Neighborhood
!Total Appraised Value, All Blocks in Neighborhood
!Total Value Per Acre
|-
|Westlink
| align="right" |19
| align="right" |119.766
| $88,890,570
| $742,202
|-
|Village
| align="right" |23
| align="right" |110.491
| $85,654,750
| $775,219
|-
|Uptown
| align="right" |73
| align="right" |107.093
| $78,655,970
| $734,464
|-
|The Elm
| align="right" |48
| align="right" |89.607
| $50,623,030
| $564,945
|-
|Sunnyside
| align="right" |57
| align="right" |129.576
| $88,201,230
| $680,691
|-
|Sunflower
| align="right" |215
| align="right" |742.582
| $457,603,270
| $616,233
|-
|Stanley-Aley
| align="right" |206
| align="right" |751.606
| $324,737,680
| $432,058
|-
|Southwest Village
| align="right" |132
| align="right" |1817.954
| $660,439,350
| $363,287
|-
|Southwest
| align="right" |230
| align="right" |1598.131
| $871,645,400
| $545,415
|-
|South City Community
| align="right" |127
| align="right" |789.999
| $369,294,200
| $467,462
|-
|South Central Improvemen
| align="right" |352
| align="right" |831.97
| $417,844,870
| $502,236
|-
|South Area
| align="right" |108
| align="right" |1683.356
| $409,668,280
| $243,364
|-
|Sleepy Hollow
| align="right" |18
| align="right" |50.223
| $52,831,050
| $1,051,929
|-
|Sherwood Glen
| align="right" |38
| align="right" |465.739
| $183,201,340
| $393,356
|-
|Schweiter East
| align="right" |29
| align="right" |168.082
| $95,972,750
| $570,988
|-
|Schweiter
| align="right" |16
| align="right" |89.844
| $55,739,930
| $620,408
|-
|Rockhurst
| align="right" |6
| align="right" |176.393
| $112,473,720
| $637,631
|-
|Riverside
| align="right" |99
| align="right" |2866.415
| $490,185,730
| $171,010
|-
|Pueblo
| align="right" |180
| align="right" |636.526
| $270,815,370
| $425,458
|-
|Power
| align="right" |53
| align="right" |140.784
| $44,849,220
| $318,568
|-
|Pleasant Valley
| align="right" |21
| align="right" |407.468
| $153,354,900
| $376,361
|-
|Planeview United
| align="right" |32
| align="right" |350.741
| $65,134,150
| $185,704
|-
|Park Meadows
| align="right" |9
| align="right" |206.989
| $147,985,790
| $714,945
|-
|Orchard Park
| align="right" |80
| align="right" |501.143
| $302,742,720
| $604,104
|-
|Orchard Breeze
| align="right" |84
| align="right" |502.086
| $217,992,420
| $434,173
|-
|Northwest Big River
| align="right" |39
| align="right" |242.398
| $179,748,600
| $741,543
|-
|Northeast Millair
| align="right" |36
| align="right" |567.426
| $167,865,430
| $295,837
|-
|Northeast Heights
| align="right" |72
| align="right" |1157.015
| $258,852,810
| $223,725
|-
|North Riverside
| align="right" |112
| align="right" |441.23
| $312,246,810
| $707,674
|-
|North Central
| align="right" |129
| align="right" |276.435
| $99,061,830
| $358,355
|-
|New Salem
| align="right" |39
| align="right" |65.477
| $34,239,910
| $522,930
|-
|Murdock
| align="right" |64
| align="right" |132.463
| $51,898,610
| $391,797
|-
|Meadowlark
| align="right" |26
| align="right" |223.66
| $104,277,400
| $466,232
|-
|Mead
| align="right" |90
| align="right" |310.737
| $179,728,080
| $578,393
|-
|Mccormick
| align="right" |207
| align="right" |488.474
| $232,834,910
| $476,658
|-
|Mcadams
| align="right" |92
| align="right" |269.262
| $92,294,380
| $342,768
|-
|Matlock Heights
| align="right" |48
| align="right" |174.084
| $54,410,590
| $312,554
|-
|Maple Hills
| align="right" |9
| align="right" |190.202
| $106,535,480
| $560,118
|-
|Macdonald
| align="right" |22
| align="right" |318.808
| $195,793,310
| $614,142
|-
|Longview
| align="right" |16
| align="right" |46.09
| $30,303,820
| $657,492
|-
|Linwood
| align="right" |71
| align="right" |124.7
| $62,239,370
| $499,113
|-
|Lambsdale
| align="right" |9
| align="right" |49.668
| $34,208,990
| $688,753
|-
|La Placita Park
| align="right" |32
| align="right" |234.934
| $149,640,920
| $636,949
|-
|Ken-Mar
| align="right" |40
| align="right" |168.936
| $74,948,720
| $443,652
|-
|Kellogg School
| align="right" |156
| align="right" |288.63
| $225,730,860
| $782,077
|-
|K-15
| align="right" |32
| align="right" |291.324
| $95,779,350
| $328,773
|-
|Jones Park
| align="right" |22
| align="right" |83.375
| $28,632,710
| $343,421
|-
|Indian Hills Riverbend
| align="right" |50
| align="right" |361.937
| $222,209,050
| $613,944
|-
|Indian Hills
| align="right" |36
| align="right" |501.851
| $169,291,130
| $337,333
|-
|Historic Midtown
| align="right" |305
| align="right" |881.556
| $793,988,220
| $900,667
|-
|Hilltop - Jefferson
| align="right" |58
| align="right" |213.846
| $188,347,700
| $880,763
|-
|Hilltop
| align="right" |10
| align="right" |118.039
| $43,639,820
| $369,707
|-
|Harrison Park Rk
| align="right" |7
| align="right" |239.923
| $165,321,230
| $689,060
|-
|Grandview Heights
| align="right" |30
| align="right" |269.269
| $120,303,050
| $446,776
|-
|Fairmount
| align="right" |37
| align="right" |240.454
| $102,234,490
| $425,173
|-
|Fabrique
| align="right" |60
| align="right" |225.131
| $136,851,260
| $607,874
|-
|Eastridge
| align="right" |80
| align="right" |439.586
| $278,168,020
| $632,795
|-
|East Mt Vernon Na
| align="right" |33
| align="right" |164.669
| $94,346,650
| $572,947
|-
|East Front
| align="right" |56
| align="right" |93.169
| $79,122,980
| $849,241
|-
|Delano Township
| align="right" |3
| align="right" |1075.363
| $34,582,470
| $32,159
|-
|Delano
| align="right" |340
| align="right" |693.706
| $757,175,340
| $1,091,493
|-
|Crown Heights South
| align="right" |23
| align="right" |116.229
| $116,287,240
| $1,000,501
|-
|Crown Heights
| align="right" |34
| align="right" |116.322
| $135,749,090
| $1,167,011
|-
|Courtland
| align="right" |18
| align="right" |96.755
| $73,787,420
| $762,621
|-
|Country Overlook
| align="right" |44
| align="right" |153.105
| $92,453,020
| $603,854
|-
|Cottonwood Village
| align="right" |12
| align="right" |214.843
| $190,305,490
| $885,789
|-
|Comotara Mainsgate Villa
| align="right" |6
| align="right" |214.845
| $148,152,130
| $689,577
|-
|College Hill
| align="right" |127
| align="right" |466.853
| $621,765,490
| $1,331,823
|-
|Chisholm Creek
| align="right" |139
| align="right" |1915.331
| $1,243,587,910
| $649,281
|-
|Central 2000
| align="right" |56
| align="right" |104.306
| $34,903,160
| $334,623
|-
|Brookhollow
| align="right" |11
| align="right" |78.473
| $92,747,710
| $1,181,906
|-
|Benjamin Hills
| align="right" |87
| align="right" |823.901
| $414,041,240
| $502,538
|}

== Conclusion ==
We put together this Total Value Per Acre analysis as an example of how we can analyze the areas of our city and county to understand the property tax value of different areas. We are only showing a few examples of how anyone can overlay this data on a map. We encourage anyone to look at the results and understand how we can use this data to provide guidance on our housing development decisions and policy.

== Credits ==
This data story and its content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution license.

Persons or organizations that Share or Adapt this content should provide Attribution that provides appropriate credit, which includes:

* © Copyright 2025
* Tyche Insights, P.B.C.
* [[User:WichitaDataExplorer|WichitaDataExplorer]]

For example, a data product or service that utilizes this article could include attribution such as:

"Portions derived from 'Wichita, Kansas Land Value Per Acre', © Copyright 2025 by Tyche Insights, P.B.C., WichitaDataExplorer & licensed under the CC BY 4.0 license"

[[Category:Wichita_KS]]

[[Category:TotalValuePerAcre]]
[[Category:DevelopableLand]]

File:Gilbert and Pershing2.png

2025-12-03T22:43:52Z

WichitaDataExplorer:

Wichita Kansas, comparison of two blocks around Gilbert and Pershing streets

Wichita, Kansas LandValuePerAcre

2025-12-03T19:05:38Z

WichitaDataExplorer: /* Additional Examples */ Updated the Market and Blake Streets image with a new image that has the blocks translucent showing the parcel boundaries underneath - I think this will make a more effective image

''First draft done. See Discussion page for additional questions that I'm asking about developing this further''[[File:Wichita, Kansas skyline.jpg|none|thumb|500x500px|Wichita Skyline]]

== Wichita, Kansas Land Value Per Acre Analysis ==
The idea of creating a land value per acre map for Wichita, Kansas and Sedgwick County interests us. We are going to use [[TycheHowTo:CreateValuePerAcreMap|this process]] described in the How-to documentation.
[[File:Wichita LandValuePerAcre Overview.png|none|thumb|600x600px|Wichita Land Value Per Acre Overview]]

== Overview ==
One way to examine the utilization and value of the land use in your community is to create a Total Value Per Acre (TVPA) analysis for your town. The idea is that various areas of your city, town or county contribute to the property tax roll at different rates. Sometimes this contribution is obvious; an undeveloped one-acre parcel of land contributes less tax than a one-acre parcel of developed land. Sometimes the contributions are counterintuitive. A 2-acre property with a two million dollar home might contribute less to the property tax roll than if there were 10 0.2 acre houses on the same property.

The organization [https://www.strongtowns.org/ Strong Towns] has recently popularized the value per acre analysis in a piece that they [https://archive.strongtowns.org/journal/2020/5/5/kansas-citys-fateful-suburban-experiment wrote about Kansas City], scroll down to see the "Value Per Acre" map. In the Kansas City map they note "Where, in modern day Kansas City, is real-estate value most concentrated? We need only map the tax value per acre of properties within city limits to see that Kansas City’s highest-value land uses lie overwhelmingly within the 1910 borders."

Our goal is to create a new layer of "Blocks" where a block is a set of contiguous parcels, usually equal to a city block. For each block we will calculate the area (in acres) of the block, we will compute the sum Total Assessed Value of all of the parcels that make up the block, and lastly we will calculate the (Total Assessed Value / Area) for each block. This value - Total Value Per Acre - will give us an understanding of the relative contribution to the tax roll of each city block. Farmed land will typically have a Total Value Per Acre of < $50,000. The most developed and valuable land will have a Total Value Per Acre of over $500,000. We will then analyze larger trends within the City and look at some examples.

== Data and Process ==
This analysis uses data from the Wichita, Kansas open data site. Specifically we are using the open data parcels found [https://ict-opendata-cityofwichita.hub.arcgis.com/datasets/cc370e96c9944bb2be62fe15964f9cba_4/explore here]. The data vintage is noted as "The Dataset is updated in real time as the City or County updates their records", therefore we are considering the vintage of the source data to be November 2025. The initial parcel table for Sedgwick County contains 238315 records and the resulting Blocks table contains 12,348 records.

We will use the following fields from the source data:

* the spatial object for each parcel boundary
* OBJECTID - we will use this to track the unique block as the parcels are aggregated
* TotVal - the total value (land + improvements) in dollars for each parcel

We followed the process identified in the How-To documentation with one addition. The Wichita parcel geometries had a few geometries (~20) that were bad and prevented some spatial operations within QGIS. We chose to process the data with the advanced setting "Skip (Ignore) Features with Invalid Geometries" when performing the Dissolve and "Join Attributes by Location (Summary)" operations.

From the process we created a spatial table for our analysis, WichitaKS_Blocks_WithSummaryData.shp.

What we end up with are two layers shown in this map - parcel boundaries in brown on the bottom, and block boundaries on the top with no fill and a blue outline, where each block is labeled with its Total Value Per Acre.
[[File:Wichita BlocksAndParcels2.png|none|thumb|750x750px|Wichita Kansas Parcels overlaid with Blocks containing Total Assessed Value Per Acre ($)]]

== Data Downloads ==

[[:File:WichitaKSBlocksWithSummaryData.zip|Download the Block data]]. This is an Esri shape file containing the blocks used in this data story. The shape file, WichitaKS_Blocks_WithSummaryData.shp, has the following structure:

* OBJECTID - a unique ID for each of the 12,348 blocks in the file
* ShapeSTAre - ignore this field
* ShapeSTLen - ignore this field
* AreaAcres - the size of each region object in acres
* TotValAcre - this is the metric used in the maps - (TotVal_Sum / AreaAcres)
* TotVal_Cou - the count of parcels covered by each block
* TotVal_Sum - the sum of the Total Assessed Value of all parcels covered by each block

== Big Picture Maps ==
In any of the images below we have created a thematic map that shows each block shaded by Total Value Per Acre. Blocks with the highest value are Blue, blocks with the lowest value are red:
[[File:BlockLegend.png|none|thumb|271x271px|Wichita Kansas Block Map Legend]]

We can start by looking at the value of property north and south of Highway 54. If you are familiar with Wichita, north of Highway 54 are neighborhoods such as Delano, College Hill, and Crown Heights, and each of these neighborhoods consists of Blocks that have higher Total Value Per Acre scores. South of Highway 54 are neighborhoods such as McCormick, Sunnyside and Hilltop-Jefferson that are a mix of Blocks that range between $250k/acre and $750+k/acre in Total Value. Further South towards East Pawnee St the Block values are typically
[[File:NorthAndSouthOf54.png|none|thumb|900x900px|Block Value per Acre, North and South of Highway 54]]

Neighborhoods such as Orchard Park, Orchard Breeze and Sunflower are interesting to compare. Housing in these neighborhoods developed between the 1920s and 1950s, however Sunflower has a slightly higher property or parcel density (slightly smaller lots). With more housing more lot, the total assessed value is higher for the same acreage. A typical Block in Sunflower will have a Total Value Per Acre of $600k, while a typical block in Orchard Park or Orchard Breeze will have a TVPA of $400k.
[[File:Orchard Sunflower.png|none|thumb|900x900px|Wichita Kansas Comparing Orchard and Sunflower neighborhoods]]

If we look at areas with housing development that occurred in the 1970s, a good sample is in the neighborhoods south of W13th St N. A neighborhood like this has Blocks with high Total Value Per Acre. This housing is relatively new, the lot size is typically around 1/2 to 1/3 of an acre and a significant number of parcels or lots fall on each city block. This leads to Total Value Per Acre by block over $750k and frequently well over $1 million.
[[File:13thAndMaize.png|none|thumb|800x800px|Wichita Kansas Total Value Per Acre around W 13th and Maize Streets]]

Lastly, we can observe neighborhoods such as Power and North Central, each of which have a large number of Blocks that have lower Total Value Per Acre, frequently between $50k and $500k. Heavily built in the 1950s, these neighborhoods have significant numbers of properties that are undeveloped. These lots were never developed, developed then deconstructed, or utilized by adjacent property owners for gardens, parking or other uses. If we think about housing development, these are areas that should be very supportive of infill development which will add housing with no or low infrastructure requirements.
[[File:PowerAndNorthCentral.png|none|thumb|800x800px|Wichita Kansas Total Value Per Acre in the Power and North Central Neighborhoods]]

== Additional Examples ==
When we start to look at property from an overall tax yield perspective, we being to notice interesting things. These are some examples.

At E Blake St and S Market St are two city blocks divided by an alleyway. The block to the west has a Total Value per Acre of $518k; the block to the east has a value that twice as high, $1.02 million. Same neighborhood, same property parcel sizes, same number of parcels on each block (about 10). What is the difference? The block on the east is primarily duplexes. Duplexes drive a higher assessed value and you don't need too many of them to drive significantly higher property tax yield. And duplexes are great starter homes. And duplexes add more housing units to the community.
[[File:SouthMarket EastBlake2.png|none|thumb|623x623px|Wichita KS City Blocks at Market and Blake Streets. Two block boundaries overlaid on top of the respective parcels that make up each block]]
We can look at Total Value Per Acre in affluent areas. Around E 13st St N and N Woodlawn Blvd is an area of upper incomes homes, typically $500-750k homes built between the 1950s and 1970s. These homes have large lot sizes as seen in the picture below.

[[File:13th Woodlawn Imagery.png|thumb|400x400px|Wichita KS around 13th and Woodlawn, showing houses and lot sizes|none]]

When we look at Total Value Per Acre, the value is astonishingly low. Every block has a TVPA of under $300k which may be surprising for affluent areas.

[[File:13th Woodlawn TVPA.png|thumb|400x400px|Wichita KS around 13th and Woodlawn, showing blocks and total value per acre|none]]

Finally, we can study the impact of undeveloped land on Total Value Per Acre for any block. Here are two blocks, divided by an alley at Gilbert and Pershing. The western block has a TVPA that is over 1/3 higher than the eastern block. Why? 2 out of 12 parcels that make up the eastern block are undeveloped. The eastern block currently has a Total assessed value of $1 million. Adding two houses to the undeveloped land would add $200-300k of total assessed value and would bring the TVPA to between $700-$730k, contributing significantly to an increased tax value of this land.
[[File:Gilbert and Pershing.png|none|thumb|Wichita Kansas Total Value Per Acre around Gilbert and Pershing]]

== Analyzing Total Value Per Acre by Neighborhood ==
In our analysis above we use neighborhoods to describe the scenarios and differences in Total Value Per Acre as we looked at various city blocks. Then we wondered what would the data look like if we rolled up our analysis by neighborhood. Using the a neighborhood boundary dataset from Zillow that contains 72 neighborhoods for Wichita, we summed up the Total Value Per Acre analysis by neighborhood. We used QGIS' "Join Attributes by Location (Summary)" tool to compare neighborhood boundaries against blocks, and the acreage and total value were summed for each neighborhood. In addition, we counted how many blocks were found in each neighborhood. Then we added in a Total Value Per Acre value for each neighborhood that is simply (Total Appraised Value of all blocks in the neighborhood / Total acres of all blocks in the neighborhood).

This table is fairly large so click "Expand" to see the entire table. Two values you may want to use for sorting include "Total Value Per Acre" and "Total Appraise Value, All Blocks in Neighborhood". This latter value will let you see the aggregate contribution of each neighborhood to the City's property tax roll.
{| class="wikitable sortable mw-collapsible mw-collapsed"
|+Total Value Per Acre by Neighborhood
!Name
!Number of Blocks
!Total Acres, All Blocks in Neighborhood
!Total Appraised Value, All Blocks in Neighborhood
!Total Value Per Acre
|-
|Westlink
| align="right" |19
| align="right" |119.766
| $88,890,570
| $742,202
|-
|Village
| align="right" |23
| align="right" |110.491
| $85,654,750
| $775,219
|-
|Uptown
| align="right" |73
| align="right" |107.093
| $78,655,970
| $734,464
|-
|The Elm
| align="right" |48
| align="right" |89.607
| $50,623,030
| $564,945
|-
|Sunnyside
| align="right" |57
| align="right" |129.576
| $88,201,230
| $680,691
|-
|Sunflower
| align="right" |215
| align="right" |742.582
| $457,603,270
| $616,233
|-
|Stanley-Aley
| align="right" |206
| align="right" |751.606
| $324,737,680
| $432,058
|-
|Southwest Village
| align="right" |132
| align="right" |1817.954
| $660,439,350
| $363,287
|-
|Southwest
| align="right" |230
| align="right" |1598.131
| $871,645,400
| $545,415
|-
|South City Community
| align="right" |127
| align="right" |789.999
| $369,294,200
| $467,462
|-
|South Central Improvemen
| align="right" |352
| align="right" |831.97
| $417,844,870
| $502,236
|-
|South Area
| align="right" |108
| align="right" |1683.356
| $409,668,280
| $243,364
|-
|Sleepy Hollow
| align="right" |18
| align="right" |50.223
| $52,831,050
| $1,051,929
|-
|Sherwood Glen
| align="right" |38
| align="right" |465.739
| $183,201,340
| $393,356
|-
|Schweiter East
| align="right" |29
| align="right" |168.082
| $95,972,750
| $570,988
|-
|Schweiter
| align="right" |16
| align="right" |89.844
| $55,739,930
| $620,408
|-
|Rockhurst
| align="right" |6
| align="right" |176.393
| $112,473,720
| $637,631
|-
|Riverside
| align="right" |99
| align="right" |2866.415
| $490,185,730
| $171,010
|-
|Pueblo
| align="right" |180
| align="right" |636.526
| $270,815,370
| $425,458
|-
|Power
| align="right" |53
| align="right" |140.784
| $44,849,220
| $318,568
|-
|Pleasant Valley
| align="right" |21
| align="right" |407.468
| $153,354,900
| $376,361
|-
|Planeview United
| align="right" |32
| align="right" |350.741
| $65,134,150
| $185,704
|-
|Park Meadows
| align="right" |9
| align="right" |206.989
| $147,985,790
| $714,945
|-
|Orchard Park
| align="right" |80
| align="right" |501.143
| $302,742,720
| $604,104
|-
|Orchard Breeze
| align="right" |84
| align="right" |502.086
| $217,992,420
| $434,173
|-
|Northwest Big River
| align="right" |39
| align="right" |242.398
| $179,748,600
| $741,543
|-
|Northeast Millair
| align="right" |36
| align="right" |567.426
| $167,865,430
| $295,837
|-
|Northeast Heights
| align="right" |72
| align="right" |1157.015
| $258,852,810
| $223,725
|-
|North Riverside
| align="right" |112
| align="right" |441.23
| $312,246,810
| $707,674
|-
|North Central
| align="right" |129
| align="right" |276.435
| $99,061,830
| $358,355
|-
|New Salem
| align="right" |39
| align="right" |65.477
| $34,239,910
| $522,930
|-
|Murdock
| align="right" |64
| align="right" |132.463
| $51,898,610
| $391,797
|-
|Meadowlark
| align="right" |26
| align="right" |223.66
| $104,277,400
| $466,232
|-
|Mead
| align="right" |90
| align="right" |310.737
| $179,728,080
| $578,393
|-
|Mccormick
| align="right" |207
| align="right" |488.474
| $232,834,910
| $476,658
|-
|Mcadams
| align="right" |92
| align="right" |269.262
| $92,294,380
| $342,768
|-
|Matlock Heights
| align="right" |48
| align="right" |174.084
| $54,410,590
| $312,554
|-
|Maple Hills
| align="right" |9
| align="right" |190.202
| $106,535,480
| $560,118
|-
|Macdonald
| align="right" |22
| align="right" |318.808
| $195,793,310
| $614,142
|-
|Longview
| align="right" |16
| align="right" |46.09
| $30,303,820
| $657,492
|-
|Linwood
| align="right" |71
| align="right" |124.7
| $62,239,370
| $499,113
|-
|Lambsdale
| align="right" |9
| align="right" |49.668
| $34,208,990
| $688,753
|-
|La Placita Park
| align="right" |32
| align="right" |234.934
| $149,640,920
| $636,949
|-
|Ken-Mar
| align="right" |40
| align="right" |168.936
| $74,948,720
| $443,652
|-
|Kellogg School
| align="right" |156
| align="right" |288.63
| $225,730,860
| $782,077
|-
|K-15
| align="right" |32
| align="right" |291.324
| $95,779,350
| $328,773
|-
|Jones Park
| align="right" |22
| align="right" |83.375
| $28,632,710
| $343,421
|-
|Indian Hills Riverbend
| align="right" |50
| align="right" |361.937
| $222,209,050
| $613,944
|-
|Indian Hills
| align="right" |36
| align="right" |501.851
| $169,291,130
| $337,333
|-
|Historic Midtown
| align="right" |305
| align="right" |881.556
| $793,988,220
| $900,667
|-
|Hilltop - Jefferson
| align="right" |58
| align="right" |213.846
| $188,347,700
| $880,763
|-
|Hilltop
| align="right" |10
| align="right" |118.039
| $43,639,820
| $369,707
|-
|Harrison Park Rk
| align="right" |7
| align="right" |239.923
| $165,321,230
| $689,060
|-
|Grandview Heights
| align="right" |30
| align="right" |269.269
| $120,303,050
| $446,776
|-
|Fairmount
| align="right" |37
| align="right" |240.454
| $102,234,490
| $425,173
|-
|Fabrique
| align="right" |60
| align="right" |225.131
| $136,851,260
| $607,874
|-
|Eastridge
| align="right" |80
| align="right" |439.586
| $278,168,020
| $632,795
|-
|East Mt Vernon Na
| align="right" |33
| align="right" |164.669
| $94,346,650
| $572,947
|-
|East Front
| align="right" |56
| align="right" |93.169
| $79,122,980
| $849,241
|-
|Delano Township
| align="right" |3
| align="right" |1075.363
| $34,582,470
| $32,159
|-
|Delano
| align="right" |340
| align="right" |693.706
| $757,175,340
| $1,091,493
|-
|Crown Heights South
| align="right" |23
| align="right" |116.229
| $116,287,240
| $1,000,501
|-
|Crown Heights
| align="right" |34
| align="right" |116.322
| $135,749,090
| $1,167,011
|-
|Courtland
| align="right" |18
| align="right" |96.755
| $73,787,420
| $762,621
|-
|Country Overlook
| align="right" |44
| align="right" |153.105
| $92,453,020
| $603,854
|-
|Cottonwood Village
| align="right" |12
| align="right" |214.843
| $190,305,490
| $885,789
|-
|Comotara Mainsgate Villa
| align="right" |6
| align="right" |214.845
| $148,152,130
| $689,577
|-
|College Hill
| align="right" |127
| align="right" |466.853
| $621,765,490
| $1,331,823
|-
|Chisholm Creek
| align="right" |139
| align="right" |1915.331
| $1,243,587,910
| $649,281
|-
|Central 2000
| align="right" |56
| align="right" |104.306
| $34,903,160
| $334,623
|-
|Brookhollow
| align="right" |11
| align="right" |78.473
| $92,747,710
| $1,181,906
|-
|Benjamin Hills
| align="right" |87
| align="right" |823.901
| $414,041,240
| $502,538
|}

== Conclusion ==
We put together this Total Value Per Acre analysis as an example of how we can analyze the areas of our city and county to understand the property tax value of different areas. We are only showing a few examples of how anyone can overlay this data on a map. We encourage anyone to look at the results and understand how we can use this data to provide guidance on our housing development decisions and policy.

== Credits ==
This data story and its content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution license.

Persons or organizations that Share or Adapt this content should provide Attribution that provides appropriate credit, which includes:

* © Copyright 2025
* Tyche Insights, P.B.C.
* [[User:WichitaDataExplorer|WichitaDataExplorer]]

For example, a data product or service that utilizes this article could include attribution such as:

"Portions derived from 'Wichita, Kansas Land Value Per Acre', © Copyright 2025 by Tyche Insights, P.B.C., WichitaDataExplorer & licensed under the CC BY 4.0 license"

[[Category:Wichita_KS]]

[[Category:TotalValuePerAcre]]
[[Category:DevelopableLand]]

File:SouthMarket EastBlake2.png

2025-12-03T19:03:13Z

WichitaDataExplorer:

Wichita KS City Blocks at Market and Blake Streets

Talk:Wichita, Kansas LandValuePerAcre

2025-12-03T18:50:10Z

WichitaDataExplorer: /* First draft complete, what's next? */ Reply

== First draft complete, what's next? ==

I completed the first draft of the article and now have some questions and thoughts

+ I have not done a 3d image - the original story on Kansas City and similar analysis uses a 3d map to highlight areas with the highest land value per acre - is this worth it? I don't know how to do 3D in QGIS and I don't know the value

+ what is the benefit in trying to roll up the total value statistics by neighborhood? Tyche pointed me to the Zillow neighborhood boundaries and I used those in some visualizations. The neighborhood boundaries are incomplete and I would need to digitize missing ones. So it's some work. Would analyzing say median land value per acre for the blocks within each neighborhood be valuble?

* ZIllow boundaries are here - <nowiki>https://github.com/stepps00/zillow-neighborhoods</nowiki> and other places

+ is there enough of a punchline? what else does this article need?

+ DONE! TYCHE FIXED THE UPLOAD MAX FILE SIZE.
Tyche needs to fix a max upload in .zip file size so that I can upload a .zip file of the block boundaries - I want anyeon to be able to download this data

that's all - comments appreciated!

[[User:WichitaDataExplorer|WichitaDataExplorer]] ([[User talk:WichitaDataExplorer|talk]]) 18:18, 2 December 2025 (UTC)

:Hi - a few thoughts. First, we did end up fixing the max file size of the upload. It was set to 8MB and we upped this to 50MB, thanks for your patience.
:Other opinions - I find that the 3d is interesting as an entry point into discussion, I don't see that it is really actionable. I think you hit on something very interesting - rolling this data up by neighborhood. You can either digitize in the missing neighborhoods and analyze all neighborhoods, or you could just pick 3-4 neighborhoods that are representative. Thinking while typing, if you rolled the data up by neighborhood you could sum up total appraised value, total acreage and then create a new value/acre map - is that the direction you're looking to take? I would be very interested to see what this looks like. It is also create a summary that is more understandable. People get it when you speak about neighborhoods.
:Net - if you had to do one thing I would pick neighborhood analysis.
:In terms of punchline... last couple of thoughts... the analysis that you're doing provides a few punchlines (and some of these are things you can do or suggest as potential next steps):
:* you can test Wichita zoning (e.g. lot size mininmums) to see how they are supportive of new development that has high value/acre yield
:* you can borrow something from this article - https://archive.strongtowns.org/journal/2024/2/2/citizen-development-higher-value-per-acre - point #5 "Focusing on productive neighborhoods.Identify the areas with the potential for the highest return on investment and focus on these neighborhoods first. "
:* you could also look at a what-if analysis for infill - what if you developed 100 houses (SFH, duplexes, etc) and put them in areas w/ low value/acre, how would that raise the metric for numerous blocks
:* as we hopefully have more of these value/acre studies on Tyche you can see what comparable cities look like for evluative purposes or to borrow ideas from those studies
:[[User:KarlTyche|KarlTyche]] ([[User talk:KarlTyche|talk]]) 14:13, 3 December 2025 (UTC)
::I added in the neighborhood rollup as a section towards the end - it is very interesting looking at the data by neighborhood and anyone can see significant differences in total value per acre by neighborhood. [[User:WichitaDataExplorer|WichitaDataExplorer]] ([[User talk:WichitaDataExplorer|talk]]) 18:50, 3 December 2025 (UTC)

Wichita, Kansas LandValuePerAcre

2025-12-03T18:48:54Z

WichitaDataExplorer: /* Analyzing Total Value Per Acre by Neighborhood */

''First draft done. See Discussion page for additional questions that I'm asking about developing this further''[[File:Wichita, Kansas skyline.jpg|none|thumb|500x500px|Wichita Skyline]]

== Wichita, Kansas Land Value Per Acre Analysis ==
The idea of creating a land value per acre map for Wichita, Kansas and Sedgwick County interests us. We are going to use [[TycheHowTo:CreateValuePerAcreMap|this process]] described in the How-to documentation.
[[File:Wichita LandValuePerAcre Overview.png|none|thumb|600x600px|Wichita Land Value Per Acre Overview]]

== Overview ==
One way to examine the utilization and value of the land use in your community is to create a Total Value Per Acre (TVPA) analysis for your town. The idea is that various areas of your city, town or county contribute to the property tax roll at different rates. Sometimes this contribution is obvious; an undeveloped one-acre parcel of land contributes less tax than a one-acre parcel of developed land. Sometimes the contributions are counterintuitive. A 2-acre property with a two million dollar home might contribute less to the property tax roll than if there were 10 0.2 acre houses on the same property.

The organization [https://www.strongtowns.org/ Strong Towns] has recently popularized the value per acre analysis in a piece that they [https://archive.strongtowns.org/journal/2020/5/5/kansas-citys-fateful-suburban-experiment wrote about Kansas City], scroll down to see the "Value Per Acre" map. In the Kansas City map they note "Where, in modern day Kansas City, is real-estate value most concentrated? We need only map the tax value per acre of properties within city limits to see that Kansas City’s highest-value land uses lie overwhelmingly within the 1910 borders."

Our goal is to create a new layer of "Blocks" where a block is a set of contiguous parcels, usually equal to a city block. For each block we will calculate the area (in acres) of the block, we will compute the sum Total Assessed Value of all of the parcels that make up the block, and lastly we will calculate the (Total Assessed Value / Area) for each block. This value - Total Value Per Acre - will give us an understanding of the relative contribution to the tax roll of each city block. Farmed land will typically have a Total Value Per Acre of < $50,000. The most developed and valuable land will have a Total Value Per Acre of over $500,000. We will then analyze larger trends within the City and look at some examples.

== Data and Process ==
This analysis uses data from the Wichita, Kansas open data site. Specifically we are using the open data parcels found [https://ict-opendata-cityofwichita.hub.arcgis.com/datasets/cc370e96c9944bb2be62fe15964f9cba_4/explore here]. The data vintage is noted as "The Dataset is updated in real time as the City or County updates their records", therefore we are considering the vintage of the source data to be November 2025. The initial parcel table for Sedgwick County contains 238315 records and the resulting Blocks table contains 12,348 records.

We will use the following fields from the source data:

* the spatial object for each parcel boundary
* OBJECTID - we will use this to track the unique block as the parcels are aggregated
* TotVal - the total value (land + improvements) in dollars for each parcel

We followed the process identified in the How-To documentation with one addition. The Wichita parcel geometries had a few geometries (~20) that were bad and prevented some spatial operations within QGIS. We chose to process the data with the advanced setting "Skip (Ignore) Features with Invalid Geometries" when performing the Dissolve and "Join Attributes by Location (Summary)" operations.

From the process we created a spatial table for our analysis, WichitaKS_Blocks_WithSummaryData.shp.

What we end up with are two layers shown in this map - parcel boundaries in brown on the bottom, and block boundaries on the top with no fill and a blue outline, where each block is labeled with its Total Value Per Acre.
[[File:Wichita BlocksAndParcels2.png|none|thumb|750x750px|Wichita Kansas Parcels overlaid with Blocks containing Total Assessed Value Per Acre ($)]]

== Data Downloads ==

[[:File:WichitaKSBlocksWithSummaryData.zip|Download the Block data]]. This is an Esri shape file containing the blocks used in this data story. The shape file, WichitaKS_Blocks_WithSummaryData.shp, has the following structure:

* OBJECTID - a unique ID for each of the 12,348 blocks in the file
* ShapeSTAre - ignore this field
* ShapeSTLen - ignore this field
* AreaAcres - the size of each region object in acres
* TotValAcre - this is the metric used in the maps - (TotVal_Sum / AreaAcres)
* TotVal_Cou - the count of parcels covered by each block
* TotVal_Sum - the sum of the Total Assessed Value of all parcels covered by each block

== Big Picture Maps ==
In any of the images below we have created a thematic map that shows each block shaded by Total Value Per Acre. Blocks with the highest value are Blue, blocks with the lowest value are red:
[[File:BlockLegend.png|none|thumb|271x271px|Wichita Kansas Block Map Legend]]

We can start by looking at the value of property north and south of Highway 54. If you are familiar with Wichita, north of Highway 54 are neighborhoods such as Delano, College Hill, and Crown Heights, and each of these neighborhoods consists of Blocks that have higher Total Value Per Acre scores. South of Highway 54 are neighborhoods such as McCormick, Sunnyside and Hilltop-Jefferson that are a mix of Blocks that range between $250k/acre and $750+k/acre in Total Value. Further South towards East Pawnee St the Block values are typically
[[File:NorthAndSouthOf54.png|none|thumb|900x900px|Block Value per Acre, North and South of Highway 54]]

Neighborhoods such as Orchard Park, Orchard Breeze and Sunflower are interesting to compare. Housing in these neighborhoods developed between the 1920s and 1950s, however Sunflower has a slightly higher property or parcel density (slightly smaller lots). With more housing more lot, the total assessed value is higher for the same acreage. A typical Block in Sunflower will have a Total Value Per Acre of $600k, while a typical block in Orchard Park or Orchard Breeze will have a TVPA of $400k.
[[File:Orchard Sunflower.png|none|thumb|900x900px|Wichita Kansas Comparing Orchard and Sunflower neighborhoods]]

If we look at areas with housing development that occurred in the 1970s, a good sample is in the neighborhoods south of W13th St N. A neighborhood like this has Blocks with high Total Value Per Acre. This housing is relatively new, the lot size is typically around 1/2 to 1/3 of an acre and a significant number of parcels or lots fall on each city block. This leads to Total Value Per Acre by block over $750k and frequently well over $1 million.
[[File:13thAndMaize.png|none|thumb|800x800px|Wichita Kansas Total Value Per Acre around W 13th and Maize Streets]]

Lastly, we can observe neighborhoods such as Power and North Central, each of which have a large number of Blocks that have lower Total Value Per Acre, frequently between $50k and $500k. Heavily built in the 1950s, these neighborhoods have significant numbers of properties that are undeveloped. These lots were never developed, developed then deconstructed, or utilized by adjacent property owners for gardens, parking or other uses. If we think about housing development, these are areas that should be very supportive of infill development which will add housing with no or low infrastructure requirements.
[[File:PowerAndNorthCentral.png|none|thumb|800x800px|Wichita Kansas Total Value Per Acre in the Power and North Central Neighborhoods]]

== Additional Examples ==
When we start to look at property from an overall tax yield perspective, we being to notice interesting things. These are some examples.

At E Blake St and S Market St are two city blocks divided by an alleyway. The block to the west has a Total Value per Acre of $518k; the block to the east has a value that twice as high, $1.02 million. Same neighborhood, same property parcel sizes, same number of parcels on each block (about 10). What is the difference? The block on the east is primarily duplexes. Duplexes drive a higher assessed value and you don't need too many of them to drive significantly higher property tax yield. And duplexes are great starter homes. And duplexes add more housing units to the community.
[[File:SouthMarket EastBlake.png|thumb|Wichita Kansas - Two blocks and their Total Value Per Acre at Blake and Market|none]]

We can look at Total Value Per Acre in affluent areas. Around E 13st St N and N Woodlawn Blvd is an area of upper incomes homes, typically $500-750k homes built between the 1950s and 1970s. These homes have large lot sizes as seen in the picture below.

[[File:13th Woodlawn Imagery.png|thumb|400x400px|Wichita KS around 13th and Woodlawn, showing houses and lot sizes|none]]

When we look at Total Value Per Acre, the value is astonishingly low. Every block has a TVPA of under $300k which may be surprising for affluent areas.

[[File:13th Woodlawn TVPA.png|thumb|400x400px|Wichita KS around 13th and Woodlawn, showing blocks and total value per acre|none]]

Finally, we can study the impact of undeveloped land on Total Value Per Acre for any block. Here are two blocks, divided by an alley at Gilbert and Pershing. The western block has a TVPA that is over 1/3 higher than the eastern block. Why? 2 out of 12 parcels that make up the eastern block are undeveloped. The eastern block currently has a Total assessed value of $1 million. Adding two houses to the undeveloped land would add $200-300k of total assessed value and would bring the TVPA to between $700-$730k, contributing significantly to an increased tax value of this land.
[[File:Gilbert and Pershing.png|none|thumb|Wichita Kansas Total Value Per Acre around Gilbert and Pershing]]

== Analyzing Total Value Per Acre by Neighborhood ==
In our analysis above we use neighborhoods to describe the scenarios and differences in Total Value Per Acre as we looked at various city blocks. Then we wondered what would the data look like if we rolled up our analysis by neighborhood. Using the a neighborhood boundary dataset from Zillow that contains 72 neighborhoods for Wichita, we summed up the Total Value Per Acre analysis by neighborhood. We used QGIS' "Join Attributes by Location (Summary)" tool to compare neighborhood boundaries against blocks, and the acreage and total value were summed for each neighborhood. In addition, we counted how many blocks were found in each neighborhood. Then we added in a Total Value Per Acre value for each neighborhood that is simply (Total Appraised Value of all blocks in the neighborhood / Total acres of all blocks in the neighborhood).

This table is fairly large so click "Expand" to see the entire table. Two values you may want to use for sorting include "Total Value Per Acre" and "Total Appraise Value, All Blocks in Neighborhood". This latter value will let you see the aggregate contribution of each neighborhood to the City's property tax roll.
{| class="wikitable sortable mw-collapsible mw-collapsed"
|+Total Value Per Acre by Neighborhood
!Name
!Number of Blocks
!Total Acres, All Blocks in Neighborhood
!Total Appraised Value, All Blocks in Neighborhood
!Total Value Per Acre
|-
|Westlink
| align="right" |19
| align="right" |119.766
| $88,890,570
| $742,202
|-
|Village
| align="right" |23
| align="right" |110.491
| $85,654,750
| $775,219
|-
|Uptown
| align="right" |73
| align="right" |107.093
| $78,655,970
| $734,464
|-
|The Elm
| align="right" |48
| align="right" |89.607
| $50,623,030
| $564,945
|-
|Sunnyside
| align="right" |57
| align="right" |129.576
| $88,201,230
| $680,691
|-
|Sunflower
| align="right" |215
| align="right" |742.582
| $457,603,270
| $616,233
|-
|Stanley-Aley
| align="right" |206
| align="right" |751.606
| $324,737,680
| $432,058
|-
|Southwest Village
| align="right" |132
| align="right" |1817.954
| $660,439,350
| $363,287
|-
|Southwest
| align="right" |230
| align="right" |1598.131
| $871,645,400
| $545,415
|-
|South City Community
| align="right" |127
| align="right" |789.999
| $369,294,200
| $467,462
|-
|South Central Improvemen
| align="right" |352
| align="right" |831.97
| $417,844,870
| $502,236
|-
|South Area
| align="right" |108
| align="right" |1683.356
| $409,668,280
| $243,364
|-
|Sleepy Hollow
| align="right" |18
| align="right" |50.223
| $52,831,050
| $1,051,929
|-
|Sherwood Glen
| align="right" |38
| align="right" |465.739
| $183,201,340
| $393,356
|-
|Schweiter East
| align="right" |29
| align="right" |168.082
| $95,972,750
| $570,988
|-
|Schweiter
| align="right" |16
| align="right" |89.844
| $55,739,930
| $620,408
|-
|Rockhurst
| align="right" |6
| align="right" |176.393
| $112,473,720
| $637,631
|-
|Riverside
| align="right" |99
| align="right" |2866.415
| $490,185,730
| $171,010
|-
|Pueblo
| align="right" |180
| align="right" |636.526
| $270,815,370
| $425,458
|-
|Power
| align="right" |53
| align="right" |140.784
| $44,849,220
| $318,568
|-
|Pleasant Valley
| align="right" |21
| align="right" |407.468
| $153,354,900
| $376,361
|-
|Planeview United
| align="right" |32
| align="right" |350.741
| $65,134,150
| $185,704
|-
|Park Meadows
| align="right" |9
| align="right" |206.989
| $147,985,790
| $714,945
|-
|Orchard Park
| align="right" |80
| align="right" |501.143
| $302,742,720
| $604,104
|-
|Orchard Breeze
| align="right" |84
| align="right" |502.086
| $217,992,420
| $434,173
|-
|Northwest Big River
| align="right" |39
| align="right" |242.398
| $179,748,600
| $741,543
|-
|Northeast Millair
| align="right" |36
| align="right" |567.426
| $167,865,430
| $295,837
|-
|Northeast Heights
| align="right" |72
| align="right" |1157.015
| $258,852,810
| $223,725
|-
|North Riverside
| align="right" |112
| align="right" |441.23
| $312,246,810
| $707,674
|-
|North Central
| align="right" |129
| align="right" |276.435
| $99,061,830
| $358,355
|-
|New Salem
| align="right" |39
| align="right" |65.477
| $34,239,910
| $522,930
|-
|Murdock
| align="right" |64
| align="right" |132.463
| $51,898,610
| $391,797
|-
|Meadowlark
| align="right" |26
| align="right" |223.66
| $104,277,400
| $466,232
|-
|Mead
| align="right" |90
| align="right" |310.737
| $179,728,080
| $578,393
|-
|Mccormick
| align="right" |207
| align="right" |488.474
| $232,834,910
| $476,658
|-
|Mcadams
| align="right" |92
| align="right" |269.262
| $92,294,380
| $342,768
|-
|Matlock Heights
| align="right" |48
| align="right" |174.084
| $54,410,590
| $312,554
|-
|Maple Hills
| align="right" |9
| align="right" |190.202
| $106,535,480
| $560,118
|-
|Macdonald
| align="right" |22
| align="right" |318.808
| $195,793,310
| $614,142
|-
|Longview
| align="right" |16
| align="right" |46.09
| $30,303,820
| $657,492
|-
|Linwood
| align="right" |71
| align="right" |124.7
| $62,239,370
| $499,113
|-
|Lambsdale
| align="right" |9
| align="right" |49.668
| $34,208,990
| $688,753
|-
|La Placita Park
| align="right" |32
| align="right" |234.934
| $149,640,920
| $636,949
|-
|Ken-Mar
| align="right" |40
| align="right" |168.936
| $74,948,720
| $443,652
|-
|Kellogg School
| align="right" |156
| align="right" |288.63
| $225,730,860
| $782,077
|-
|K-15
| align="right" |32
| align="right" |291.324
| $95,779,350
| $328,773
|-
|Jones Park
| align="right" |22
| align="right" |83.375
| $28,632,710
| $343,421
|-
|Indian Hills Riverbend
| align="right" |50
| align="right" |361.937
| $222,209,050
| $613,944
|-
|Indian Hills
| align="right" |36
| align="right" |501.851
| $169,291,130
| $337,333
|-
|Historic Midtown
| align="right" |305
| align="right" |881.556
| $793,988,220
| $900,667
|-
|Hilltop - Jefferson
| align="right" |58
| align="right" |213.846
| $188,347,700
| $880,763
|-
|Hilltop
| align="right" |10
| align="right" |118.039
| $43,639,820
| $369,707
|-
|Harrison Park Rk
| align="right" |7
| align="right" |239.923
| $165,321,230
| $689,060
|-
|Grandview Heights
| align="right" |30
| align="right" |269.269
| $120,303,050
| $446,776
|-
|Fairmount
| align="right" |37
| align="right" |240.454
| $102,234,490
| $425,173
|-
|Fabrique
| align="right" |60
| align="right" |225.131
| $136,851,260
| $607,874
|-
|Eastridge
| align="right" |80
| align="right" |439.586
| $278,168,020
| $632,795
|-
|East Mt Vernon Na
| align="right" |33
| align="right" |164.669
| $94,346,650
| $572,947
|-
|East Front
| align="right" |56
| align="right" |93.169
| $79,122,980
| $849,241
|-
|Delano Township
| align="right" |3
| align="right" |1075.363
| $34,582,470
| $32,159
|-
|Delano
| align="right" |340
| align="right" |693.706
| $757,175,340
| $1,091,493
|-
|Crown Heights South
| align="right" |23
| align="right" |116.229
| $116,287,240
| $1,000,501
|-
|Crown Heights
| align="right" |34
| align="right" |116.322
| $135,749,090
| $1,167,011
|-
|Courtland
| align="right" |18
| align="right" |96.755
| $73,787,420
| $762,621
|-
|Country Overlook
| align="right" |44
| align="right" |153.105
| $92,453,020
| $603,854
|-
|Cottonwood Village
| align="right" |12
| align="right" |214.843
| $190,305,490
| $885,789
|-
|Comotara Mainsgate Villa
| align="right" |6
| align="right" |214.845
| $148,152,130
| $689,577
|-
|College Hill
| align="right" |127
| align="right" |466.853
| $621,765,490
| $1,331,823
|-
|Chisholm Creek
| align="right" |139
| align="right" |1915.331
| $1,243,587,910
| $649,281
|-
|Central 2000
| align="right" |56
| align="right" |104.306
| $34,903,160
| $334,623
|-
|Brookhollow
| align="right" |11
| align="right" |78.473
| $92,747,710
| $1,181,906
|-
|Benjamin Hills
| align="right" |87
| align="right" |823.901
| $414,041,240
| $502,538
|}

== Conclusion ==
We put together this Total Value Per Acre analysis as an example of how we can analyze the areas of our city and county to understand the property tax value of different areas. We are only showing a few examples of how anyone can overlay this data on a map. We encourage anyone to look at the results and understand how we can use this data to provide guidance on our housing development decisions and policy.

== Credits ==
This data story and its content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution license.

Persons or organizations that Share or Adapt this content should provide Attribution that provides appropriate credit, which includes:

* © Copyright 2025
* Tyche Insights, P.B.C.
* [[User:WichitaDataExplorer|WichitaDataExplorer]]

For example, a data product or service that utilizes this article could include attribution such as:

"Portions derived from 'Wichita, Kansas Land Value Per Acre', © Copyright 2025 by Tyche Insights, P.B.C., WichitaDataExplorer & licensed under the CC BY 4.0 license"

[[Category:Wichita_KS]]

[[Category:TotalValuePerAcre]]
[[Category:DevelopableLand]]

Wichita, Kansas LandValuePerAcre

2025-12-03T18:46:48Z

WichitaDataExplorer: /* Analyzing Total Value Per Acre by Neighborhood */

''First draft done. See Discussion page for additional questions that I'm asking about developing this further''[[File:Wichita, Kansas skyline.jpg|none|thumb|500x500px|Wichita Skyline]]

== Wichita, Kansas Land Value Per Acre Analysis ==
The idea of creating a land value per acre map for Wichita, Kansas and Sedgwick County interests us. We are going to use [[TycheHowTo:CreateValuePerAcreMap|this process]] described in the How-to documentation.
[[File:Wichita LandValuePerAcre Overview.png|none|thumb|600x600px|Wichita Land Value Per Acre Overview]]

== Overview ==
One way to examine the utilization and value of the land use in your community is to create a Total Value Per Acre (TVPA) analysis for your town. The idea is that various areas of your city, town or county contribute to the property tax roll at different rates. Sometimes this contribution is obvious; an undeveloped one-acre parcel of land contributes less tax than a one-acre parcel of developed land. Sometimes the contributions are counterintuitive. A 2-acre property with a two million dollar home might contribute less to the property tax roll than if there were 10 0.2 acre houses on the same property.

The organization [https://www.strongtowns.org/ Strong Towns] has recently popularized the value per acre analysis in a piece that they [https://archive.strongtowns.org/journal/2020/5/5/kansas-citys-fateful-suburban-experiment wrote about Kansas City], scroll down to see the "Value Per Acre" map. In the Kansas City map they note "Where, in modern day Kansas City, is real-estate value most concentrated? We need only map the tax value per acre of properties within city limits to see that Kansas City’s highest-value land uses lie overwhelmingly within the 1910 borders."

Our goal is to create a new layer of "Blocks" where a block is a set of contiguous parcels, usually equal to a city block. For each block we will calculate the area (in acres) of the block, we will compute the sum Total Assessed Value of all of the parcels that make up the block, and lastly we will calculate the (Total Assessed Value / Area) for each block. This value - Total Value Per Acre - will give us an understanding of the relative contribution to the tax roll of each city block. Farmed land will typically have a Total Value Per Acre of < $50,000. The most developed and valuable land will have a Total Value Per Acre of over $500,000. We will then analyze larger trends within the City and look at some examples.

== Data and Process ==
This analysis uses data from the Wichita, Kansas open data site. Specifically we are using the open data parcels found [https://ict-opendata-cityofwichita.hub.arcgis.com/datasets/cc370e96c9944bb2be62fe15964f9cba_4/explore here]. The data vintage is noted as "The Dataset is updated in real time as the City or County updates their records", therefore we are considering the vintage of the source data to be November 2025. The initial parcel table for Sedgwick County contains 238315 records and the resulting Blocks table contains 12,348 records.

We will use the following fields from the source data:

* the spatial object for each parcel boundary
* OBJECTID - we will use this to track the unique block as the parcels are aggregated
* TotVal - the total value (land + improvements) in dollars for each parcel

We followed the process identified in the How-To documentation with one addition. The Wichita parcel geometries had a few geometries (~20) that were bad and prevented some spatial operations within QGIS. We chose to process the data with the advanced setting "Skip (Ignore) Features with Invalid Geometries" when performing the Dissolve and "Join Attributes by Location (Summary)" operations.

From the process we created a spatial table for our analysis, WichitaKS_Blocks_WithSummaryData.shp.

What we end up with are two layers shown in this map - parcel boundaries in brown on the bottom, and block boundaries on the top with no fill and a blue outline, where each block is labeled with its Total Value Per Acre.
[[File:Wichita BlocksAndParcels2.png|none|thumb|750x750px|Wichita Kansas Parcels overlaid with Blocks containing Total Assessed Value Per Acre ($)]]

== Data Downloads ==

[[:File:WichitaKSBlocksWithSummaryData.zip|Download the Block data]]. This is an Esri shape file containing the blocks used in this data story. The shape file, WichitaKS_Blocks_WithSummaryData.shp, has the following structure:

* OBJECTID - a unique ID for each of the 12,348 blocks in the file
* ShapeSTAre - ignore this field
* ShapeSTLen - ignore this field
* AreaAcres - the size of each region object in acres
* TotValAcre - this is the metric used in the maps - (TotVal_Sum / AreaAcres)
* TotVal_Cou - the count of parcels covered by each block
* TotVal_Sum - the sum of the Total Assessed Value of all parcels covered by each block

== Big Picture Maps ==
In any of the images below we have created a thematic map that shows each block shaded by Total Value Per Acre. Blocks with the highest value are Blue, blocks with the lowest value are red:
[[File:BlockLegend.png|none|thumb|271x271px|Wichita Kansas Block Map Legend]]

We can start by looking at the value of property north and south of Highway 54. If you are familiar with Wichita, north of Highway 54 are neighborhoods such as Delano, College Hill, and Crown Heights, and each of these neighborhoods consists of Blocks that have higher Total Value Per Acre scores. South of Highway 54 are neighborhoods such as McCormick, Sunnyside and Hilltop-Jefferson that are a mix of Blocks that range between $250k/acre and $750+k/acre in Total Value. Further South towards East Pawnee St the Block values are typically
[[File:NorthAndSouthOf54.png|none|thumb|900x900px|Block Value per Acre, North and South of Highway 54]]

Neighborhoods such as Orchard Park, Orchard Breeze and Sunflower are interesting to compare. Housing in these neighborhoods developed between the 1920s and 1950s, however Sunflower has a slightly higher property or parcel density (slightly smaller lots). With more housing more lot, the total assessed value is higher for the same acreage. A typical Block in Sunflower will have a Total Value Per Acre of $600k, while a typical block in Orchard Park or Orchard Breeze will have a TVPA of $400k.
[[File:Orchard Sunflower.png|none|thumb|900x900px|Wichita Kansas Comparing Orchard and Sunflower neighborhoods]]

If we look at areas with housing development that occurred in the 1970s, a good sample is in the neighborhoods south of W13th St N. A neighborhood like this has Blocks with high Total Value Per Acre. This housing is relatively new, the lot size is typically around 1/2 to 1/3 of an acre and a significant number of parcels or lots fall on each city block. This leads to Total Value Per Acre by block over $750k and frequently well over $1 million.
[[File:13thAndMaize.png|none|thumb|800x800px|Wichita Kansas Total Value Per Acre around W 13th and Maize Streets]]

Lastly, we can observe neighborhoods such as Power and North Central, each of which have a large number of Blocks that have lower Total Value Per Acre, frequently between $50k and $500k. Heavily built in the 1950s, these neighborhoods have significant numbers of properties that are undeveloped. These lots were never developed, developed then deconstructed, or utilized by adjacent property owners for gardens, parking or other uses. If we think about housing development, these are areas that should be very supportive of infill development which will add housing with no or low infrastructure requirements.
[[File:PowerAndNorthCentral.png|none|thumb|800x800px|Wichita Kansas Total Value Per Acre in the Power and North Central Neighborhoods]]

== Additional Examples ==
When we start to look at property from an overall tax yield perspective, we being to notice interesting things. These are some examples.

At E Blake St and S Market St are two city blocks divided by an alleyway. The block to the west has a Total Value per Acre of $518k; the block to the east has a value that twice as high, $1.02 million. Same neighborhood, same property parcel sizes, same number of parcels on each block (about 10). What is the difference? The block on the east is primarily duplexes. Duplexes drive a higher assessed value and you don't need too many of them to drive significantly higher property tax yield. And duplexes are great starter homes. And duplexes add more housing units to the community.
[[File:SouthMarket EastBlake.png|thumb|Wichita Kansas - Two blocks and their Total Value Per Acre at Blake and Market|none]]

We can look at Total Value Per Acre in affluent areas. Around E 13st St N and N Woodlawn Blvd is an area of upper incomes homes, typically $500-750k homes built between the 1950s and 1970s. These homes have large lot sizes as seen in the picture below.

[[File:13th Woodlawn Imagery.png|thumb|400x400px|Wichita KS around 13th and Woodlawn, showing houses and lot sizes|none]]

When we look at Total Value Per Acre, the value is astonishingly low. Every block has a TVPA of under $300k which may be surprising for affluent areas.

[[File:13th Woodlawn TVPA.png|thumb|400x400px|Wichita KS around 13th and Woodlawn, showing blocks and total value per acre|none]]

Finally, we can study the impact of undeveloped land on Total Value Per Acre for any block. Here are two blocks, divided by an alley at Gilbert and Pershing. The western block has a TVPA that is over 1/3 higher than the eastern block. Why? 2 out of 12 parcels that make up the eastern block are undeveloped. The eastern block currently has a Total assessed value of $1 million. Adding two houses to the undeveloped land would add $200-300k of total assessed value and would bring the TVPA to between $700-$730k, contributing significantly to an increased tax value of this land.
[[File:Gilbert and Pershing.png|none|thumb|Wichita Kansas Total Value Per Acre around Gilbert and Pershing]]

== Analyzing Total Value Per Acre by Neighborhood ==
In our analysis above we use neighborhoods to describe the scenarios and differences in Total Value Per Acre as we looked at various city blocks. Then we wondered what would the data look like if we rolled up our analysis by neighborhood. Using the a neighborhood boundary dataset from Zillow that contains 72 neighborhoods for Wichita, we summed up the Total Value Per Acre analysis by neighborhood. We used QGIS' "Join Attributes by Location (Summary)" tool to compare neighborhood boundaries against blocks, and the acreage and total value were summed for each neighborhood. In addition, we counted how many blocks were found in each neighborhood. Then we added in a Total Value Per Acre value for each neighborhood that is simply (Total Appraised Value of all blocks in the neighborhood / Total acres of all blocks in the neighborhood).
{| class="wikitable sortable mw-collapsible mw-collapsed"
|+Total Value Per Acre by Neighborhood
!Name
!Number of Blocks
!Total Acres, All Blocks in Neighborhood
!Total Appraised Value, All Blocks in Neighborhood
!Total Value Per Acre
|-
|Westlink
| align="right" |19
| align="right" |119.766
| $88,890,570
| $742,202
|-
|Village
| align="right" |23
| align="right" |110.491
| $85,654,750
| $775,219
|-
|Uptown
| align="right" |73
| align="right" |107.093
| $78,655,970
| $734,464
|-
|The Elm
| align="right" |48
| align="right" |89.607
| $50,623,030
| $564,945
|-
|Sunnyside
| align="right" |57
| align="right" |129.576
| $88,201,230
| $680,691
|-
|Sunflower
| align="right" |215
| align="right" |742.582
| $457,603,270
| $616,233
|-
|Stanley-Aley
| align="right" |206
| align="right" |751.606
| $324,737,680
| $432,058
|-
|Southwest Village
| align="right" |132
| align="right" |1817.954
| $660,439,350
| $363,287
|-
|Southwest
| align="right" |230
| align="right" |1598.131
| $871,645,400
| $545,415
|-
|South City Community
| align="right" |127
| align="right" |789.999
| $369,294,200
| $467,462
|-
|South Central Improvemen
| align="right" |352
| align="right" |831.97
| $417,844,870
| $502,236
|-
|South Area
| align="right" |108
| align="right" |1683.356
| $409,668,280
| $243,364
|-
|Sleepy Hollow
| align="right" |18
| align="right" |50.223
| $52,831,050
| $1,051,929
|-
|Sherwood Glen
| align="right" |38
| align="right" |465.739
| $183,201,340
| $393,356
|-
|Schweiter East
| align="right" |29
| align="right" |168.082
| $95,972,750
| $570,988
|-
|Schweiter
| align="right" |16
| align="right" |89.844
| $55,739,930
| $620,408
|-
|Rockhurst
| align="right" |6
| align="right" |176.393
| $112,473,720
| $637,631
|-
|Riverside
| align="right" |99
| align="right" |2866.415
| $490,185,730
| $171,010
|-
|Pueblo
| align="right" |180
| align="right" |636.526
| $270,815,370
| $425,458
|-
|Power
| align="right" |53
| align="right" |140.784
| $44,849,220
| $318,568
|-
|Pleasant Valley
| align="right" |21
| align="right" |407.468
| $153,354,900
| $376,361
|-
|Planeview United
| align="right" |32
| align="right" |350.741
| $65,134,150
| $185,704
|-
|Park Meadows
| align="right" |9
| align="right" |206.989
| $147,985,790
| $714,945
|-
|Orchard Park
| align="right" |80
| align="right" |501.143
| $302,742,720
| $604,104
|-
|Orchard Breeze
| align="right" |84
| align="right" |502.086
| $217,992,420
| $434,173
|-
|Northwest Big River
| align="right" |39
| align="right" |242.398
| $179,748,600
| $741,543
|-
|Northeast Millair
| align="right" |36
| align="right" |567.426
| $167,865,430
| $295,837
|-
|Northeast Heights
| align="right" |72
| align="right" |1157.015
| $258,852,810
| $223,725
|-
|North Riverside
| align="right" |112
| align="right" |441.23
| $312,246,810
| $707,674
|-
|North Central
| align="right" |129
| align="right" |276.435
| $99,061,830
| $358,355
|-
|New Salem
| align="right" |39
| align="right" |65.477
| $34,239,910
| $522,930
|-
|Murdock
| align="right" |64
| align="right" |132.463
| $51,898,610
| $391,797
|-
|Meadowlark
| align="right" |26
| align="right" |223.66
| $104,277,400
| $466,232
|-
|Mead
| align="right" |90
| align="right" |310.737
| $179,728,080
| $578,393
|-
|Mccormick
| align="right" |207
| align="right" |488.474
| $232,834,910
| $476,658
|-
|Mcadams
| align="right" |92
| align="right" |269.262
| $92,294,380
| $342,768
|-
|Matlock Heights
| align="right" |48
| align="right" |174.084
| $54,410,590
| $312,554
|-
|Maple Hills
| align="right" |9
| align="right" |190.202
| $106,535,480
| $560,118
|-
|Macdonald
| align="right" |22
| align="right" |318.808
| $195,793,310
| $614,142
|-
|Longview
| align="right" |16
| align="right" |46.09
| $30,303,820
| $657,492
|-
|Linwood
| align="right" |71
| align="right" |124.7
| $62,239,370
| $499,113
|-
|Lambsdale
| align="right" |9
| align="right" |49.668
| $34,208,990
| $688,753
|-
|La Placita Park
| align="right" |32
| align="right" |234.934
| $149,640,920
| $636,949
|-
|Ken-Mar
| align="right" |40
| align="right" |168.936
| $74,948,720
| $443,652
|-
|Kellogg School
| align="right" |156
| align="right" |288.63
| $225,730,860
| $782,077
|-
|K-15
| align="right" |32
| align="right" |291.324
| $95,779,350
| $328,773
|-
|Jones Park
| align="right" |22
| align="right" |83.375
| $28,632,710
| $343,421
|-
|Indian Hills Riverbend
| align="right" |50
| align="right" |361.937
| $222,209,050
| $613,944
|-
|Indian Hills
| align="right" |36
| align="right" |501.851
| $169,291,130
| $337,333
|-
|Historic Midtown
| align="right" |305
| align="right" |881.556
| $793,988,220
| $900,667
|-
|Hilltop - Jefferson
| align="right" |58
| align="right" |213.846
| $188,347,700
| $880,763
|-
|Hilltop
| align="right" |10
| align="right" |118.039
| $43,639,820
| $369,707
|-
|Harrison Park Rk
| align="right" |7
| align="right" |239.923
| $165,321,230
| $689,060
|-
|Grandview Heights
| align="right" |30
| align="right" |269.269
| $120,303,050
| $446,776
|-
|Fairmount
| align="right" |37
| align="right" |240.454
| $102,234,490
| $425,173
|-
|Fabrique
| align="right" |60
| align="right" |225.131
| $136,851,260
| $607,874
|-
|Eastridge
| align="right" |80
| align="right" |439.586
| $278,168,020
| $632,795
|-
|East Mt Vernon Na
| align="right" |33
| align="right" |164.669
| $94,346,650
| $572,947
|-
|East Front
| align="right" |56
| align="right" |93.169
| $79,122,980
| $849,241
|-
|Delano Township
| align="right" |3
| align="right" |1075.363
| $34,582,470
| $32,159
|-
|Delano
| align="right" |340
| align="right" |693.706
| $757,175,340
| $1,091,493
|-
|Crown Heights South
| align="right" |23
| align="right" |116.229
| $116,287,240
| $1,000,501
|-
|Crown Heights
| align="right" |34
| align="right" |116.322
| $135,749,090
| $1,167,011
|-
|Courtland
| align="right" |18
| align="right" |96.755
| $73,787,420
| $762,621
|-
|Country Overlook
| align="right" |44
| align="right" |153.105
| $92,453,020
| $603,854
|-
|Cottonwood Village
| align="right" |12
| align="right" |214.843
| $190,305,490
| $885,789
|-
|Comotara Mainsgate Villa
| align="right" |6
| align="right" |214.845
| $148,152,130
| $689,577
|-
|College Hill
| align="right" |127
| align="right" |466.853
| $621,765,490
| $1,331,823
|-
|Chisholm Creek
| align="right" |139
| align="right" |1915.331
| $1,243,587,910
| $649,281
|-
|Central 2000
| align="right" |56
| align="right" |104.306
| $34,903,160
| $334,623
|-
|Brookhollow
| align="right" |11
| align="right" |78.473
| $92,747,710
| $1,181,906
|-
|Benjamin Hills
| align="right" |87
| align="right" |823.901
| $414,041,240
| $502,538
|}

== Conclusion ==
We put together this Total Value Per Acre analysis as an example of how we can analyze the areas of our city and county to understand the property tax value of different areas. We are only showing a few examples of how anyone can overlay this data on a map. We encourage anyone to look at the results and understand how we can use this data to provide guidance on our housing development decisions and policy.

== Credits ==
This data story and its content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution license.

Persons or organizations that Share or Adapt this content should provide Attribution that provides appropriate credit, which includes:

* © Copyright 2025
* Tyche Insights, P.B.C.
* [[User:WichitaDataExplorer|WichitaDataExplorer]]

For example, a data product or service that utilizes this article could include attribution such as:

"Portions derived from 'Wichita, Kansas Land Value Per Acre', © Copyright 2025 by Tyche Insights, P.B.C., WichitaDataExplorer & licensed under the CC BY 4.0 license"

[[Category:Wichita_KS]]

[[Category:TotalValuePerAcre]]
[[Category:DevelopableLand]]

Wichita, Kansas LandValuePerAcre

2025-12-03T18:45:09Z

WichitaDataExplorer: /* Analyzing Total Value Per Acre by Neighborhood */

''First draft done. See Discussion page for additional questions that I'm asking about developing this further''[[File:Wichita, Kansas skyline.jpg|none|thumb|500x500px|Wichita Skyline]]

== Wichita, Kansas Land Value Per Acre Analysis ==
The idea of creating a land value per acre map for Wichita, Kansas and Sedgwick County interests us. We are going to use [[TycheHowTo:CreateValuePerAcreMap|this process]] described in the How-to documentation.
[[File:Wichita LandValuePerAcre Overview.png|none|thumb|600x600px|Wichita Land Value Per Acre Overview]]

== Overview ==
One way to examine the utilization and value of the land use in your community is to create a Total Value Per Acre (TVPA) analysis for your town. The idea is that various areas of your city, town or county contribute to the property tax roll at different rates. Sometimes this contribution is obvious; an undeveloped one-acre parcel of land contributes less tax than a one-acre parcel of developed land. Sometimes the contributions are counterintuitive. A 2-acre property with a two million dollar home might contribute less to the property tax roll than if there were 10 0.2 acre houses on the same property.

The organization [https://www.strongtowns.org/ Strong Towns] has recently popularized the value per acre analysis in a piece that they [https://archive.strongtowns.org/journal/2020/5/5/kansas-citys-fateful-suburban-experiment wrote about Kansas City], scroll down to see the "Value Per Acre" map. In the Kansas City map they note "Where, in modern day Kansas City, is real-estate value most concentrated? We need only map the tax value per acre of properties within city limits to see that Kansas City’s highest-value land uses lie overwhelmingly within the 1910 borders."

Our goal is to create a new layer of "Blocks" where a block is a set of contiguous parcels, usually equal to a city block. For each block we will calculate the area (in acres) of the block, we will compute the sum Total Assessed Value of all of the parcels that make up the block, and lastly we will calculate the (Total Assessed Value / Area) for each block. This value - Total Value Per Acre - will give us an understanding of the relative contribution to the tax roll of each city block. Farmed land will typically have a Total Value Per Acre of < $50,000. The most developed and valuable land will have a Total Value Per Acre of over $500,000. We will then analyze larger trends within the City and look at some examples.

== Data and Process ==
This analysis uses data from the Wichita, Kansas open data site. Specifically we are using the open data parcels found [https://ict-opendata-cityofwichita.hub.arcgis.com/datasets/cc370e96c9944bb2be62fe15964f9cba_4/explore here]. The data vintage is noted as "The Dataset is updated in real time as the City or County updates their records", therefore we are considering the vintage of the source data to be November 2025. The initial parcel table for Sedgwick County contains 238315 records and the resulting Blocks table contains 12,348 records.

We will use the following fields from the source data:

* the spatial object for each parcel boundary
* OBJECTID - we will use this to track the unique block as the parcels are aggregated
* TotVal - the total value (land + improvements) in dollars for each parcel

We followed the process identified in the How-To documentation with one addition. The Wichita parcel geometries had a few geometries (~20) that were bad and prevented some spatial operations within QGIS. We chose to process the data with the advanced setting "Skip (Ignore) Features with Invalid Geometries" when performing the Dissolve and "Join Attributes by Location (Summary)" operations.

From the process we created a spatial table for our analysis, WichitaKS_Blocks_WithSummaryData.shp.

What we end up with are two layers shown in this map - parcel boundaries in brown on the bottom, and block boundaries on the top with no fill and a blue outline, where each block is labeled with its Total Value Per Acre.
[[File:Wichita BlocksAndParcels2.png|none|thumb|750x750px|Wichita Kansas Parcels overlaid with Blocks containing Total Assessed Value Per Acre ($)]]

== Data Downloads ==

[[:File:WichitaKSBlocksWithSummaryData.zip|Download the Block data]]. This is an Esri shape file containing the blocks used in this data story. The shape file, WichitaKS_Blocks_WithSummaryData.shp, has the following structure:

* OBJECTID - a unique ID for each of the 12,348 blocks in the file
* ShapeSTAre - ignore this field
* ShapeSTLen - ignore this field
* AreaAcres - the size of each region object in acres
* TotValAcre - this is the metric used in the maps - (TotVal_Sum / AreaAcres)
* TotVal_Cou - the count of parcels covered by each block
* TotVal_Sum - the sum of the Total Assessed Value of all parcels covered by each block

== Big Picture Maps ==
In any of the images below we have created a thematic map that shows each block shaded by Total Value Per Acre. Blocks with the highest value are Blue, blocks with the lowest value are red:
[[File:BlockLegend.png|none|thumb|271x271px|Wichita Kansas Block Map Legend]]

We can start by looking at the value of property north and south of Highway 54. If you are familiar with Wichita, north of Highway 54 are neighborhoods such as Delano, College Hill, and Crown Heights, and each of these neighborhoods consists of Blocks that have higher Total Value Per Acre scores. South of Highway 54 are neighborhoods such as McCormick, Sunnyside and Hilltop-Jefferson that are a mix of Blocks that range between $250k/acre and $750+k/acre in Total Value. Further South towards East Pawnee St the Block values are typically
[[File:NorthAndSouthOf54.png|none|thumb|900x900px|Block Value per Acre, North and South of Highway 54]]

Neighborhoods such as Orchard Park, Orchard Breeze and Sunflower are interesting to compare. Housing in these neighborhoods developed between the 1920s and 1950s, however Sunflower has a slightly higher property or parcel density (slightly smaller lots). With more housing more lot, the total assessed value is higher for the same acreage. A typical Block in Sunflower will have a Total Value Per Acre of $600k, while a typical block in Orchard Park or Orchard Breeze will have a TVPA of $400k.
[[File:Orchard Sunflower.png|none|thumb|900x900px|Wichita Kansas Comparing Orchard and Sunflower neighborhoods]]

If we look at areas with housing development that occurred in the 1970s, a good sample is in the neighborhoods south of W13th St N. A neighborhood like this has Blocks with high Total Value Per Acre. This housing is relatively new, the lot size is typically around 1/2 to 1/3 of an acre and a significant number of parcels or lots fall on each city block. This leads to Total Value Per Acre by block over $750k and frequently well over $1 million.
[[File:13thAndMaize.png|none|thumb|800x800px|Wichita Kansas Total Value Per Acre around W 13th and Maize Streets]]

Lastly, we can observe neighborhoods such as Power and North Central, each of which have a large number of Blocks that have lower Total Value Per Acre, frequently between $50k and $500k. Heavily built in the 1950s, these neighborhoods have significant numbers of properties that are undeveloped. These lots were never developed, developed then deconstructed, or utilized by adjacent property owners for gardens, parking or other uses. If we think about housing development, these are areas that should be very supportive of infill development which will add housing with no or low infrastructure requirements.
[[File:PowerAndNorthCentral.png|none|thumb|800x800px|Wichita Kansas Total Value Per Acre in the Power and North Central Neighborhoods]]

== Additional Examples ==
When we start to look at property from an overall tax yield perspective, we being to notice interesting things. These are some examples.

At E Blake St and S Market St are two city blocks divided by an alleyway. The block to the west has a Total Value per Acre of $518k; the block to the east has a value that twice as high, $1.02 million. Same neighborhood, same property parcel sizes, same number of parcels on each block (about 10). What is the difference? The block on the east is primarily duplexes. Duplexes drive a higher assessed value and you don't need too many of them to drive significantly higher property tax yield. And duplexes are great starter homes. And duplexes add more housing units to the community.
[[File:SouthMarket EastBlake.png|thumb|Wichita Kansas - Two blocks and their Total Value Per Acre at Blake and Market|none]]

We can look at Total Value Per Acre in affluent areas. Around E 13st St N and N Woodlawn Blvd is an area of upper incomes homes, typically $500-750k homes built between the 1950s and 1970s. These homes have large lot sizes as seen in the picture below.

[[File:13th Woodlawn Imagery.png|thumb|400x400px|Wichita KS around 13th and Woodlawn, showing houses and lot sizes|none]]

When we look at Total Value Per Acre, the value is astonishingly low. Every block has a TVPA of under $300k which may be surprising for affluent areas.

[[File:13th Woodlawn TVPA.png|thumb|400x400px|Wichita KS around 13th and Woodlawn, showing blocks and total value per acre|none]]

Finally, we can study the impact of undeveloped land on Total Value Per Acre for any block. Here are two blocks, divided by an alley at Gilbert and Pershing. The western block has a TVPA that is over 1/3 higher than the eastern block. Why? 2 out of 12 parcels that make up the eastern block are undeveloped. The eastern block currently has a Total assessed value of $1 million. Adding two houses to the undeveloped land would add $200-300k of total assessed value and would bring the TVPA to between $700-$730k, contributing significantly to an increased tax value of this land.
[[File:Gilbert and Pershing.png|none|thumb|Wichita Kansas Total Value Per Acre around Gilbert and Pershing]]

== Analyzing Total Value Per Acre by Neighborhood ==
In our analysis above we use neighborhoods to describe the scenarios and differences in Total Value Per Acre as we looked at various city blocks. Then we wondered what would the data look like if we rolled up our analysis by neighborhood. Using the a neighborhood boundary dataset from Zillow that contains 72 neighborhoods for Wichita, we summed up the Total Value Per Acre analysis by neighborhood. We used QGIS' "Join Attributes by Location (Summary)" tool to compare neighborhood boundaries against blocks, and the acreage and total value were summed for each neighborhood. In addition, we counted how many blocks were found in each neighborhood. Then we added in a Total Value Per Acre value for each neighborhood that is simply (Total Appraised Value of all blocks in the neighborhood / Total acres of all blocks in the neighborhood).
{| class="wikitable sortable mw-collapsible mw-collapsed"
|+Total Value Per Acre by Neighborhood
!Name
!Number of Blocks
!Total Acres, All Blocks in Neighborhood
!Total Appraised Value, All Blocks in Neighborhood
!Total Value Per Acre
|-
|Westlink
| align="right" |19
| align="right" |119.766
| $88,890,570
| $742,202
|-
|Village
| align="right" |23
| align="right" |110.491
| $85,654,750
| $775,219
|-
|Uptown
| align="right" |73
| align="right" |107.093
| $78,655,970
| $734,464
|-
|The Elm
| align="right" |48
| align="right" |89.607
| $50,623,030
| $564,945
|-
|Sunnyside
| align="right" |57
| align="right" |129.576
| $88,201,230
| $680,691
|-
|Sunflower
| align="right" |215
| align="right" |742.582
| $457,603,270
| $616,233
|-
|Stanley-Aley
| align="right" |206
| align="right" |751.606
| $324,737,680
| $432,058
|-
|Southwest Village
| align="right" |132
| align="right" |1817.954
| $660,439,350
| $363,287
|-
|Southwest
| align="right" |230
| align="right" |1598.131
| $871,645,400
| $545,415
|-
|South City Community
| align="right" |127
| align="right" |789.999
| $369,294,200
| $467,462
|-
|South Central Improvemen
| align="right" |352
| align="right" |831.97
| $417,844,870
| $502,236
|-
|South Area
| align="right" |108
| align="right" |1683.356
| $409,668,280
| $243,364
|-
|Sleepy Hollow
| align="right" |18
| align="right" |50.223
| $52,831,050
| $1,051,929
|-
|Sherwood Glen
| align="right" |38
| align="right" |465.739
| $183,201,340
| $393,356
|-
|Schweiter East
| align="right" |29
| align="right" |168.082
| $95,972,750
| $570,988
|-
|Schweiter
| align="right" |16
| align="right" |89.844
| $55,739,930
| $620,408
|-
|Rockhurst
| align="right" |6
| align="right" |176.393
| $112,473,720
| $637,631
|-
|Riverside
| align="right" |99
| align="right" |2866.415
| $490,185,730
| $171,010
|-
|Pueblo
| align="right" |180
| align="right" |636.526
| $270,815,370
| $425,458
|-
|Power
| align="right" |53
| align="right" |140.784
| $44,849,220
| $318,568
|-
|Pleasant Valley
| align="right" |21
| align="right" |407.468
| $153,354,900
| $376,361
|-
|Planeview United
| align="right" |32
| align="right" |350.741
| $65,134,150
| $185,704
|-
|Park Meadows
| align="right" |9
| align="right" |206.989
| $147,985,790
| $714,945
|-
|Orchard Park
| align="right" |80
| align="right" |501.143
| $302,742,720
| $604,104
|-
|Orchard Breeze
| align="right" |84
| align="right" |502.086
| $217,992,420
| $434,173
|-
|Northwest Big River
| align="right" |39
| align="right" |242.398
| $179,748,600
| $741,543
|-
|Northeast Millair
| align="right" |36
| align="right" |567.426
| $167,865,430
| $295,837
|-
|Northeast Heights
| align="right" |72
| align="right" |1157.015
| $258,852,810
| $223,725
|-
|North Riverside
| align="right" |112
| align="right" |441.23
| $312,246,810
| $707,674
|-
|North Central
| align="right" |129
| align="right" |276.435
| $99,061,830
| $358,355
|-
|New Salem
| align="right" |39
| align="right" |65.477
| $34,239,910
| $522,930
|-
|Murdock
| align="right" |64
| align="right" |132.463
| $51,898,610
| $391,797
|-
|Meadowlark
| align="right" |26
| align="right" |223.66
| $104,277,400
| $466,232
|-
|Mead
| align="right" |90
| align="right" |310.737
| $179,728,080
| $578,393
|-
|Mccormick
| align="right" |207
| align="right" |488.474
| $232,834,910
| $476,658
|-
|Mcadams
| align="right" |92
| align="right" |269.262
| $92,294,380
| $342,768
|-
|Matlock Heights
| align="right" |48
| align="right" |174.084
| $54,410,590
| $312,554
|-
|Maple Hills
| align="right" |9
| align="right" |190.202
| $106,535,480
| $560,118
|-
|Macdonald
| align="right" |22
| align="right" |318.808
| $195,793,310
| $614,142
|-
|Longview
| align="right" |16
| align="right" |46.09
| $30,303,820
| $657,492
|-
|Linwood
| align="right" |71
| align="right" |124.7
| $62,239,370
| $499,113
|-
|Lambsdale
| align="right" |9
| align="right" |49.668
| $34,208,990
| $688,753
|-
|La Placita Park
| align="right" |32
| align="right" |234.934
| $149,640,920
| $636,949
|-
|Ken-Mar
| align="right" |40
| align="right" |168.936
| $74,948,720
| $443,652
|-
|Kellogg School
| align="right" |156
| align="right" |288.63
| $225,730,860
| $782,077
|-
|K-15
| align="right" |32
| align="right" |291.324
| $95,779,350
| $328,773
|-
|Jones Park
| align="right" |22
| align="right" |83.375
| $28,632,710
| $343,421
|-
|Indian Hills Riverbend
| align="right" |50
| align="right" |361.937
| $222,209,050
| $613,944
|-
|Indian Hills
| align="right" |36
| align="right" |501.851
| $169,291,130
| $337,333
|-
|Historic Midtown
| align="right" |305
| align="right" |881.556
| $793,988,220
| $900,667
|-
|Hilltop - Jefferson
| align="right" |58
| align="right" |213.846
| $188,347,700
| $880,763
|-
|Hilltop
| align="right" |10
| align="right" |118.039
| $43,639,820
| $369,707
|-
|Harrison Park Rk
| align="right" |7
| align="right" |239.923
| $165,321,230
| $689,060
|-
|Grandview Heights
| align="right" |30
| align="right" |269.269
| $120,303,050
| $446,776
|-
|Fairmount
| align="right" |37
| align="right" |240.454
| $102,234,490
| $425,173
|-
|Fabrique
| align="right" |60
| align="right" |225.131
| $136,851,260
| $607,874
|-
|Eastridge
| align="right" |80
| align="right" |439.586
| $ 278,168,020
| $ 632,795
|-
|East Mt Vernon Na
| align="right" |33
| align="right" |164.669
| $    94,346,650
| $ 572,947
|-
|East Front
| align="right" |56
| align="right" |93.169
| $    79,122,980
| $ 849,241
|-
|Delano Township
| align="right" |3
| align="right" |1075.363
| $    34,582,470
| $ 32,159
|-
|Delano
| align="right" |340
| align="right" |693.706
| $ 757,175,340
| $ 1,091,493
|-
|Crown Heights South
| align="right" |23
| align="right" |116.229
| $ 116,287,240
| $ 1,000,501
|-
|Crown Heights
| align="right" |34
| align="right" |116.322
| $ 135,749,090
| $ 1,167,011
|-
|Courtland
| align="right" |18
| align="right" |96.755
| $    73,787,420
| $ 762,621
|-
|Country Overlook
| align="right" |44
| align="right" |153.105
| $    92,453,020
| $ 603,854
|-
|Cottonwood Village
| align="right" |12
| align="right" |214.843
| $ 190,305,490
| $ 885,789
|-
|Comotara Mainsgate Villa
| align="right" |6
| align="right" |214.845
| $ 148,152,130
| $ 689,577
|-
|College Hill
| align="right" |127
| align="right" |466.853
| $ 621,765,490
| $ 1,331,823
|-
|Chisholm Creek
| align="right" |139
| align="right" |1915.331
| $    1,243,587,910
| $ 649,281
|-
|Central 2000
| align="right" |56
| align="right" |104.306
| $    34,903,160
| $ 334,623
|-
|Brookhollow
| align="right" |11
| align="right" |78.473
| $    92,747,710
| $ 1,181,906
|-
|Benjamin Hills
| align="right" |87
| align="right" |823.901
| $ 414,041,240
| $ 502,538
|}

== Conclusion ==
We put together this Total Value Per Acre analysis as an example of how we can analyze the areas of our city and county to understand the property tax value of different areas. We are only showing a few examples of how anyone can overlay this data on a map. We encourage anyone to look at the results and understand how we can use this data to provide guidance on our housing development decisions and policy.

== Credits ==
This data story and its content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution license.

Persons or organizations that Share or Adapt this content should provide Attribution that provides appropriate credit, which includes:

* © Copyright 2025
* Tyche Insights, P.B.C.
* [[User:WichitaDataExplorer|WichitaDataExplorer]]

For example, a data product or service that utilizes this article could include attribution such as:

"Portions derived from 'Wichita, Kansas Land Value Per Acre', © Copyright 2025 by Tyche Insights, P.B.C., WichitaDataExplorer & licensed under the CC BY 4.0 license"

[[Category:Wichita_KS]]

[[Category:TotalValuePerAcre]]
[[Category:DevelopableLand]]

Wichita, Kansas LandValuePerAcre

2025-12-03T18:41:29Z

WichitaDataExplorer: /* Analyzing Total Value Per Acre by Neighborhood */

''First draft done. See Discussion page for additional questions that I'm asking about developing this further''[[File:Wichita, Kansas skyline.jpg|none|thumb|500x500px|Wichita Skyline]]

== Wichita, Kansas Land Value Per Acre Analysis ==
The idea of creating a land value per acre map for Wichita, Kansas and Sedgwick County interests us. We are going to use [[TycheHowTo:CreateValuePerAcreMap|this process]] described in the How-to documentation.
[[File:Wichita LandValuePerAcre Overview.png|none|thumb|600x600px|Wichita Land Value Per Acre Overview]]

== Overview ==
One way to examine the utilization and value of the land use in your community is to create a Total Value Per Acre (TVPA) analysis for your town. The idea is that various areas of your city, town or county contribute to the property tax roll at different rates. Sometimes this contribution is obvious; an undeveloped one-acre parcel of land contributes less tax than a one-acre parcel of developed land. Sometimes the contributions are counterintuitive. A 2-acre property with a two million dollar home might contribute less to the property tax roll than if there were 10 0.2 acre houses on the same property.

The organization [https://www.strongtowns.org/ Strong Towns] has recently popularized the value per acre analysis in a piece that they [https://archive.strongtowns.org/journal/2020/5/5/kansas-citys-fateful-suburban-experiment wrote about Kansas City], scroll down to see the "Value Per Acre" map. In the Kansas City map they note "Where, in modern day Kansas City, is real-estate value most concentrated? We need only map the tax value per acre of properties within city limits to see that Kansas City’s highest-value land uses lie overwhelmingly within the 1910 borders."

Our goal is to create a new layer of "Blocks" where a block is a set of contiguous parcels, usually equal to a city block. For each block we will calculate the area (in acres) of the block, we will compute the sum Total Assessed Value of all of the parcels that make up the block, and lastly we will calculate the (Total Assessed Value / Area) for each block. This value - Total Value Per Acre - will give us an understanding of the relative contribution to the tax roll of each city block. Farmed land will typically have a Total Value Per Acre of < $50,000. The most developed and valuable land will have a Total Value Per Acre of over $500,000. We will then analyze larger trends within the City and look at some examples.

== Data and Process ==
This analysis uses data from the Wichita, Kansas open data site. Specifically we are using the open data parcels found [https://ict-opendata-cityofwichita.hub.arcgis.com/datasets/cc370e96c9944bb2be62fe15964f9cba_4/explore here]. The data vintage is noted as "The Dataset is updated in real time as the City or County updates their records", therefore we are considering the vintage of the source data to be November 2025. The initial parcel table for Sedgwick County contains 238315 records and the resulting Blocks table contains 12,348 records.

We will use the following fields from the source data:

* the spatial object for each parcel boundary
* OBJECTID - we will use this to track the unique block as the parcels are aggregated
* TotVal - the total value (land + improvements) in dollars for each parcel

We followed the process identified in the How-To documentation with one addition. The Wichita parcel geometries had a few geometries (~20) that were bad and prevented some spatial operations within QGIS. We chose to process the data with the advanced setting "Skip (Ignore) Features with Invalid Geometries" when performing the Dissolve and "Join Attributes by Location (Summary)" operations.

From the process we created a spatial table for our analysis, WichitaKS_Blocks_WithSummaryData.shp.

What we end up with are two layers shown in this map - parcel boundaries in brown on the bottom, and block boundaries on the top with no fill and a blue outline, where each block is labeled with its Total Value Per Acre.
[[File:Wichita BlocksAndParcels2.png|none|thumb|750x750px|Wichita Kansas Parcels overlaid with Blocks containing Total Assessed Value Per Acre ($)]]

== Data Downloads ==

[[:File:WichitaKSBlocksWithSummaryData.zip|Download the Block data]]. This is an Esri shape file containing the blocks used in this data story. The shape file, WichitaKS_Blocks_WithSummaryData.shp, has the following structure:

* OBJECTID - a unique ID for each of the 12,348 blocks in the file
* ShapeSTAre - ignore this field
* ShapeSTLen - ignore this field
* AreaAcres - the size of each region object in acres
* TotValAcre - this is the metric used in the maps - (TotVal_Sum / AreaAcres)
* TotVal_Cou - the count of parcels covered by each block
* TotVal_Sum - the sum of the Total Assessed Value of all parcels covered by each block

== Big Picture Maps ==
In any of the images below we have created a thematic map that shows each block shaded by Total Value Per Acre. Blocks with the highest value are Blue, blocks with the lowest value are red:
[[File:BlockLegend.png|none|thumb|271x271px|Wichita Kansas Block Map Legend]]

We can start by looking at the value of property north and south of Highway 54. If you are familiar with Wichita, north of Highway 54 are neighborhoods such as Delano, College Hill, and Crown Heights, and each of these neighborhoods consists of Blocks that have higher Total Value Per Acre scores. South of Highway 54 are neighborhoods such as McCormick, Sunnyside and Hilltop-Jefferson that are a mix of Blocks that range between $250k/acre and $750+k/acre in Total Value. Further South towards East Pawnee St the Block values are typically
[[File:NorthAndSouthOf54.png|none|thumb|900x900px|Block Value per Acre, North and South of Highway 54]]

Neighborhoods such as Orchard Park, Orchard Breeze and Sunflower are interesting to compare. Housing in these neighborhoods developed between the 1920s and 1950s, however Sunflower has a slightly higher property or parcel density (slightly smaller lots). With more housing more lot, the total assessed value is higher for the same acreage. A typical Block in Sunflower will have a Total Value Per Acre of $600k, while a typical block in Orchard Park or Orchard Breeze will have a TVPA of $400k.
[[File:Orchard Sunflower.png|none|thumb|900x900px|Wichita Kansas Comparing Orchard and Sunflower neighborhoods]]

If we look at areas with housing development that occurred in the 1970s, a good sample is in the neighborhoods south of W13th St N. A neighborhood like this has Blocks with high Total Value Per Acre. This housing is relatively new, the lot size is typically around 1/2 to 1/3 of an acre and a significant number of parcels or lots fall on each city block. This leads to Total Value Per Acre by block over $750k and frequently well over $1 million.
[[File:13thAndMaize.png|none|thumb|800x800px|Wichita Kansas Total Value Per Acre around W 13th and Maize Streets]]

Lastly, we can observe neighborhoods such as Power and North Central, each of which have a large number of Blocks that have lower Total Value Per Acre, frequently between $50k and $500k. Heavily built in the 1950s, these neighborhoods have significant numbers of properties that are undeveloped. These lots were never developed, developed then deconstructed, or utilized by adjacent property owners for gardens, parking or other uses. If we think about housing development, these are areas that should be very supportive of infill development which will add housing with no or low infrastructure requirements.
[[File:PowerAndNorthCentral.png|none|thumb|800x800px|Wichita Kansas Total Value Per Acre in the Power and North Central Neighborhoods]]

== Additional Examples ==
When we start to look at property from an overall tax yield perspective, we being to notice interesting things. These are some examples.

At E Blake St and S Market St are two city blocks divided by an alleyway. The block to the west has a Total Value per Acre of $518k; the block to the east has a value that twice as high, $1.02 million. Same neighborhood, same property parcel sizes, same number of parcels on each block (about 10). What is the difference? The block on the east is primarily duplexes. Duplexes drive a higher assessed value and you don't need too many of them to drive significantly higher property tax yield. And duplexes are great starter homes. And duplexes add more housing units to the community.
[[File:SouthMarket EastBlake.png|thumb|Wichita Kansas - Two blocks and their Total Value Per Acre at Blake and Market|none]]

We can look at Total Value Per Acre in affluent areas. Around E 13st St N and N Woodlawn Blvd is an area of upper incomes homes, typically $500-750k homes built between the 1950s and 1970s. These homes have large lot sizes as seen in the picture below.

[[File:13th Woodlawn Imagery.png|thumb|400x400px|Wichita KS around 13th and Woodlawn, showing houses and lot sizes|none]]

When we look at Total Value Per Acre, the value is astonishingly low. Every block has a TVPA of under $300k which may be surprising for affluent areas.

[[File:13th Woodlawn TVPA.png|thumb|400x400px|Wichita KS around 13th and Woodlawn, showing blocks and total value per acre|none]]

Finally, we can study the impact of undeveloped land on Total Value Per Acre for any block. Here are two blocks, divided by an alley at Gilbert and Pershing. The western block has a TVPA that is over 1/3 higher than the eastern block. Why? 2 out of 12 parcels that make up the eastern block are undeveloped. The eastern block currently has a Total assessed value of $1 million. Adding two houses to the undeveloped land would add $200-300k of total assessed value and would bring the TVPA to between $700-$730k, contributing significantly to an increased tax value of this land.
[[File:Gilbert and Pershing.png|none|thumb|Wichita Kansas Total Value Per Acre around Gilbert and Pershing]]

== Analyzing Total Value Per Acre by Neighborhood ==
In our analysis above we use neighborhoods to describe the scenarios and differences in Total Value Per Acre as we looked at various city blocks. Then we wondered what would the data look like if we rolled up our analysis by neighborhood. Using the a neighborhood boundary dataset from Zillow that contains 72 neighborhoods for Wichita, we summed up the Total Value Per Acre analysis by neighborhood. We used QGIS' "Join Attributes by Location (Summary)" tool to compare neighborhood boundaries against blocks, and the acreage and total value were summed for each neighborhood. In addition, we counted how many blocks were found in each neighborhood. Then we added in a Total Value Per Acre value for each neighborhood that is simply (Total Appraised Value of all blocks in the neighborhood / Total acres of all blocks in the neighborhood).
{| class="wikitable sortable mw-collapsible mw-collapsed"
|+Total Value Per Acre by Neighborhood
!Name
!Number of Blocks
!Total Acres, All Blocks in Neighborhood
!Total Appraised Value, All Blocks in Neighborhood
!Total Value Per Acre
|-
|Westlink
| align="right" |19
| align="right" |119.766
| $88,890,570
| $742,202
|-
|Village
| align="right" |23
| align="right" |110.491
| $85,654,750
| $775,219
|-
|Uptown
| align="right" |73
| align="right" |107.093
| $78,655,970
| $734,464
|-
|The Elm
| align="right" |48
| align="right" |89.607
| $50,623,030
| $564,945
|-
|Sunnyside
| align="right" |57
| align="right" |129.576
| $88,201,230
| $680,691
|-
|Sunflower
| align="right" |215
| align="right" |742.582
| $457,603,270
| $616,233
|-
|Stanley-Aley
| align="right" |206
| align="right" |751.606
| $324,737,680
| $432,058
|-
|Southwest Village
| align="right" |132
| align="right" |1817.954
| $660,439,350
| $363,287
|-
|Southwest
| align="right" |230
| align="right" |1598.131
| $871,645,400
| $545,415
|-
|South City Community
| align="right" |127
| align="right" |789.999
| $369,294,200
| $467,462
|-
|South Central Improvemen
| align="right" |352
| align="right" |831.97
| $417,844,870
| $502,236
|-
|South Area
| align="right" |108
| align="right" |1683.356
| $409,668,280
| $243,364
|-
|Sleepy Hollow
| align="right" |18
| align="right" |50.223
| $52,831,050
| $1,051,929
|-
|Sherwood Glen
| align="right" |38
| align="right" |465.739
| $ 183,201,340
| $ 393,356
|-
|Schweiter East
| align="right" |29
| align="right" |168.082
| $    95,972,750
| $ 570,988
|-
|Schweiter
| align="right" |16
| align="right" |89.844
| $    55,739,930
| $ 620,408
|-
|Rockhurst
| align="right" |6
| align="right" |176.393
| $ 112,473,720
| $ 637,631
|-
|Riverside
| align="right" |99
| align="right" |2866.415
| $ 490,185,730
| $ 171,010
|-
|Pueblo
| align="right" |180
| align="right" |636.526
| $ 270,815,370
| $ 425,458
|-
|Power
| align="right" |53
| align="right" |140.784
| $    44,849,220
| $ 318,568
|-
|Pleasant Valley
| align="right" |21
| align="right" |407.468
| $ 153,354,900
| $ 376,361
|-
|Planeview United
| align="right" |32
| align="right" |350.741
| $    65,134,150
| $ 185,704
|-
|Park Meadows
| align="right" |9
| align="right" |206.989
| $ 147,985,790
| $ 714,945
|-
|Orchard Park
| align="right" |80
| align="right" |501.143
| $ 302,742,720
| $ 604,104
|-
|Orchard Breeze
| align="right" |84
| align="right" |502.086
| $ 217,992,420
| $ 434,173
|-
|Northwest Big River
| align="right" |39
| align="right" |242.398
| $ 179,748,600
| $ 741,543
|-
|Northeast Millair
| align="right" |36
| align="right" |567.426
| $ 167,865,430
| $ 295,837
|-
|Northeast Heights
| align="right" |72
| align="right" |1157.015
| $ 258,852,810
| $ 223,725
|-
|North Riverside
| align="right" |112
| align="right" |441.23
| $ 312,246,810
| $ 707,674
|-
|North Central
| align="right" |129
| align="right" |276.435
| $    99,061,830
| $ 358,355
|-
|New Salem
| align="right" |39
| align="right" |65.477
| $    34,239,910
| $ 522,930
|-
|Murdock
| align="right" |64
| align="right" |132.463
| $    51,898,610
| $ 391,797
|-
|Meadowlark
| align="right" |26
| align="right" |223.66
| $ 104,277,400
| $ 466,232
|-
|Mead
| align="right" |90
| align="right" |310.737
| $ 179,728,080
| $ 578,393
|-
|Mccormick
| align="right" |207
| align="right" |488.474
| $ 232,834,910
| $ 476,658
|-
|Mcadams
| align="right" |92
| align="right" |269.262
| $    92,294,380
| $ 342,768
|-
|Matlock Heights
| align="right" |48
| align="right" |174.084
| $    54,410,590
| $ 312,554
|-
|Maple Hills
| align="right" |9
| align="right" |190.202
| $ 106,535,480
| $ 560,118
|-
|Macdonald
| align="right" |22
| align="right" |318.808
| $ 195,793,310
| $ 614,142
|-
|Longview
| align="right" |16
| align="right" |46.09
| $    30,303,820
| $ 657,492
|-
|Linwood
| align="right" |71
| align="right" |124.7
| $    62,239,370
| $ 499,113
|-
|Lambsdale
| align="right" |9
| align="right" |49.668
| $    34,208,990
| $ 688,753
|-
|La Placita Park
| align="right" |32
| align="right" |234.934
| $ 149,640,920
| $ 636,949
|-
|Ken-Mar
| align="right" |40
| align="right" |168.936
| $    74,948,720
| $ 443,652
|-
|Kellogg School
| align="right" |156
| align="right" |288.63
| $ 225,730,860
| $ 782,077
|-
|K-15
| align="right" |32
| align="right" |291.324
| $    95,779,350
| $ 328,773
|-
|Jones Park
| align="right" |22
| align="right" |83.375
| $    28,632,710
| $ 343,421
|-
|Indian Hills Riverbend
| align="right" |50
| align="right" |361.937
| $ 222,209,050
| $ 613,944
|-
|Indian Hills
| align="right" |36
| align="right" |501.851
| $ 169,291,130
| $ 337,333
|-
|Historic Midtown
| align="right" |305
| align="right" |881.556
| $ 793,988,220
| $ 900,667
|-
|Hilltop - Jefferson
| align="right" |58
| align="right" |213.846
| $ 188,347,700
| $ 880,763
|-
|Hilltop
| align="right" |10
| align="right" |118.039
| $    43,639,820
| $ 369,707
|-
|Harrison Park Rk
| align="right" |7
| align="right" |239.923
| $ 165,321,230
| $ 689,060
|-
|Grandview Heights
| align="right" |30
| align="right" |269.269
| $ 120,303,050
| $ 446,776
|-
|Fairmount
| align="right" |37
| align="right" |240.454
| $ 102,234,490
| $ 425,173
|-
|Fabrique
| align="right" |60
| align="right" |225.131
| $ 136,851,260
| $ 607,874
|-
|Eastridge
| align="right" |80
| align="right" |439.586
| $ 278,168,020
| $ 632,795
|-
|East Mt Vernon Na
| align="right" |33
| align="right" |164.669
| $    94,346,650
| $ 572,947
|-
|East Front
| align="right" |56
| align="right" |93.169
| $    79,122,980
| $ 849,241
|-
|Delano Township
| align="right" |3
| align="right" |1075.363
| $    34,582,470
| $ 32,159
|-
|Delano
| align="right" |340
| align="right" |693.706
| $ 757,175,340
| $ 1,091,493
|-
|Crown Heights South
| align="right" |23
| align="right" |116.229
| $ 116,287,240
| $ 1,000,501
|-
|Crown Heights
| align="right" |34
| align="right" |116.322
| $ 135,749,090
| $ 1,167,011
|-
|Courtland
| align="right" |18
| align="right" |96.755
| $    73,787,420
| $ 762,621
|-
|Country Overlook
| align="right" |44
| align="right" |153.105
| $    92,453,020
| $ 603,854
|-
|Cottonwood Village
| align="right" |12
| align="right" |214.843
| $ 190,305,490
| $ 885,789
|-
|Comotara Mainsgate Villa
| align="right" |6
| align="right" |214.845
| $ 148,152,130
| $ 689,577
|-
|College Hill
| align="right" |127
| align="right" |466.853
| $ 621,765,490
| $ 1,331,823
|-
|Chisholm Creek
| align="right" |139
| align="right" |1915.331
| $    1,243,587,910
| $ 649,281
|-
|Central 2000
| align="right" |56
| align="right" |104.306
| $    34,903,160
| $ 334,623
|-
|Brookhollow
| align="right" |11
| align="right" |78.473
| $    92,747,710
| $ 1,181,906
|-
|Benjamin Hills
| align="right" |87
| align="right" |823.901
| $ 414,041,240
| $ 502,538
|}

== Conclusion ==
We put together this Total Value Per Acre analysis as an example of how we can analyze the areas of our city and county to understand the property tax value of different areas. We are only showing a few examples of how anyone can overlay this data on a map. We encourage anyone to look at the results and understand how we can use this data to provide guidance on our housing development decisions and policy.

== Credits ==
This data story and its content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution license.

Persons or organizations that Share or Adapt this content should provide Attribution that provides appropriate credit, which includes:

* © Copyright 2025
* Tyche Insights, P.B.C.
* [[User:WichitaDataExplorer|WichitaDataExplorer]]

For example, a data product or service that utilizes this article could include attribution such as:

"Portions derived from 'Wichita, Kansas Land Value Per Acre', © Copyright 2025 by Tyche Insights, P.B.C., WichitaDataExplorer & licensed under the CC BY 4.0 license"

[[Category:Wichita_KS]]

[[Category:TotalValuePerAcre]]
[[Category:DevelopableLand]]

Wichita, Kansas LandValuePerAcre

2025-12-03T18:40:19Z

WichitaDataExplorer: added in neighborhood analysis

''First draft done. See Discussion page for additional questions that I'm asking about developing this further''[[File:Wichita, Kansas skyline.jpg|none|thumb|500x500px|Wichita Skyline]]

== Wichita, Kansas Land Value Per Acre Analysis ==
The idea of creating a land value per acre map for Wichita, Kansas and Sedgwick County interests us. We are going to use [[TycheHowTo:CreateValuePerAcreMap|this process]] described in the How-to documentation.
[[File:Wichita LandValuePerAcre Overview.png|none|thumb|600x600px|Wichita Land Value Per Acre Overview]]

== Overview ==
One way to examine the utilization and value of the land use in your community is to create a Total Value Per Acre (TVPA) analysis for your town. The idea is that various areas of your city, town or county contribute to the property tax roll at different rates. Sometimes this contribution is obvious; an undeveloped one-acre parcel of land contributes less tax than a one-acre parcel of developed land. Sometimes the contributions are counterintuitive. A 2-acre property with a two million dollar home might contribute less to the property tax roll than if there were 10 0.2 acre houses on the same property.

The organization [https://www.strongtowns.org/ Strong Towns] has recently popularized the value per acre analysis in a piece that they [https://archive.strongtowns.org/journal/2020/5/5/kansas-citys-fateful-suburban-experiment wrote about Kansas City], scroll down to see the "Value Per Acre" map. In the Kansas City map they note "Where, in modern day Kansas City, is real-estate value most concentrated? We need only map the tax value per acre of properties within city limits to see that Kansas City’s highest-value land uses lie overwhelmingly within the 1910 borders."

Our goal is to create a new layer of "Blocks" where a block is a set of contiguous parcels, usually equal to a city block. For each block we will calculate the area (in acres) of the block, we will compute the sum Total Assessed Value of all of the parcels that make up the block, and lastly we will calculate the (Total Assessed Value / Area) for each block. This value - Total Value Per Acre - will give us an understanding of the relative contribution to the tax roll of each city block. Farmed land will typically have a Total Value Per Acre of < $50,000. The most developed and valuable land will have a Total Value Per Acre of over $500,000. We will then analyze larger trends within the City and look at some examples.

== Data and Process ==
This analysis uses data from the Wichita, Kansas open data site. Specifically we are using the open data parcels found [https://ict-opendata-cityofwichita.hub.arcgis.com/datasets/cc370e96c9944bb2be62fe15964f9cba_4/explore here]. The data vintage is noted as "The Dataset is updated in real time as the City or County updates their records", therefore we are considering the vintage of the source data to be November 2025. The initial parcel table for Sedgwick County contains 238315 records and the resulting Blocks table contains 12,348 records.

We will use the following fields from the source data:

* the spatial object for each parcel boundary
* OBJECTID - we will use this to track the unique block as the parcels are aggregated
* TotVal - the total value (land + improvements) in dollars for each parcel

We followed the process identified in the How-To documentation with one addition. The Wichita parcel geometries had a few geometries (~20) that were bad and prevented some spatial operations within QGIS. We chose to process the data with the advanced setting "Skip (Ignore) Features with Invalid Geometries" when performing the Dissolve and "Join Attributes by Location (Summary)" operations.

From the process we created a spatial table for our analysis, WichitaKS_Blocks_WithSummaryData.shp.

What we end up with are two layers shown in this map - parcel boundaries in brown on the bottom, and block boundaries on the top with no fill and a blue outline, where each block is labeled with its Total Value Per Acre.
[[File:Wichita BlocksAndParcels2.png|none|thumb|750x750px|Wichita Kansas Parcels overlaid with Blocks containing Total Assessed Value Per Acre ($)]]

== Data Downloads ==

[[:File:WichitaKSBlocksWithSummaryData.zip|Download the Block data]]. This is an Esri shape file containing the blocks used in this data story. The shape file, WichitaKS_Blocks_WithSummaryData.shp, has the following structure:

* OBJECTID - a unique ID for each of the 12,348 blocks in the file
* ShapeSTAre - ignore this field
* ShapeSTLen - ignore this field
* AreaAcres - the size of each region object in acres
* TotValAcre - this is the metric used in the maps - (TotVal_Sum / AreaAcres)
* TotVal_Cou - the count of parcels covered by each block
* TotVal_Sum - the sum of the Total Assessed Value of all parcels covered by each block

== Big Picture Maps ==
In any of the images below we have created a thematic map that shows each block shaded by Total Value Per Acre. Blocks with the highest value are Blue, blocks with the lowest value are red:
[[File:BlockLegend.png|none|thumb|271x271px|Wichita Kansas Block Map Legend]]

We can start by looking at the value of property north and south of Highway 54. If you are familiar with Wichita, north of Highway 54 are neighborhoods such as Delano, College Hill, and Crown Heights, and each of these neighborhoods consists of Blocks that have higher Total Value Per Acre scores. South of Highway 54 are neighborhoods such as McCormick, Sunnyside and Hilltop-Jefferson that are a mix of Blocks that range between $250k/acre and $750+k/acre in Total Value. Further South towards East Pawnee St the Block values are typically
[[File:NorthAndSouthOf54.png|none|thumb|900x900px|Block Value per Acre, North and South of Highway 54]]

Neighborhoods such as Orchard Park, Orchard Breeze and Sunflower are interesting to compare. Housing in these neighborhoods developed between the 1920s and 1950s, however Sunflower has a slightly higher property or parcel density (slightly smaller lots). With more housing more lot, the total assessed value is higher for the same acreage. A typical Block in Sunflower will have a Total Value Per Acre of $600k, while a typical block in Orchard Park or Orchard Breeze will have a TVPA of $400k.
[[File:Orchard Sunflower.png|none|thumb|900x900px|Wichita Kansas Comparing Orchard and Sunflower neighborhoods]]

If we look at areas with housing development that occurred in the 1970s, a good sample is in the neighborhoods south of W13th St N. A neighborhood like this has Blocks with high Total Value Per Acre. This housing is relatively new, the lot size is typically around 1/2 to 1/3 of an acre and a significant number of parcels or lots fall on each city block. This leads to Total Value Per Acre by block over $750k and frequently well over $1 million.
[[File:13thAndMaize.png|none|thumb|800x800px|Wichita Kansas Total Value Per Acre around W 13th and Maize Streets]]

Lastly, we can observe neighborhoods such as Power and North Central, each of which have a large number of Blocks that have lower Total Value Per Acre, frequently between $50k and $500k. Heavily built in the 1950s, these neighborhoods have significant numbers of properties that are undeveloped. These lots were never developed, developed then deconstructed, or utilized by adjacent property owners for gardens, parking or other uses. If we think about housing development, these are areas that should be very supportive of infill development which will add housing with no or low infrastructure requirements.
[[File:PowerAndNorthCentral.png|none|thumb|800x800px|Wichita Kansas Total Value Per Acre in the Power and North Central Neighborhoods]]

== Additional Examples ==
When we start to look at property from an overall tax yield perspective, we being to notice interesting things. These are some examples.

At E Blake St and S Market St are two city blocks divided by an alleyway. The block to the west has a Total Value per Acre of $518k; the block to the east has a value that twice as high, $1.02 million. Same neighborhood, same property parcel sizes, same number of parcels on each block (about 10). What is the difference? The block on the east is primarily duplexes. Duplexes drive a higher assessed value and you don't need too many of them to drive significantly higher property tax yield. And duplexes are great starter homes. And duplexes add more housing units to the community.
[[File:SouthMarket EastBlake.png|thumb|Wichita Kansas - Two blocks and their Total Value Per Acre at Blake and Market|none]]

We can look at Total Value Per Acre in affluent areas. Around E 13st St N and N Woodlawn Blvd is an area of upper incomes homes, typically $500-750k homes built between the 1950s and 1970s. These homes have large lot sizes as seen in the picture below.

[[File:13th Woodlawn Imagery.png|thumb|400x400px|Wichita KS around 13th and Woodlawn, showing houses and lot sizes|none]]

When we look at Total Value Per Acre, the value is astonishingly low. Every block has a TVPA of under $300k which may be surprising for affluent areas.

[[File:13th Woodlawn TVPA.png|thumb|400x400px|Wichita KS around 13th and Woodlawn, showing blocks and total value per acre|none]]

Finally, we can study the impact of undeveloped land on Total Value Per Acre for any block. Here are two blocks, divided by an alley at Gilbert and Pershing. The western block has a TVPA that is over 1/3 higher than the eastern block. Why? 2 out of 12 parcels that make up the eastern block are undeveloped. The eastern block currently has a Total assessed value of $1 million. Adding two houses to the undeveloped land would add $200-300k of total assessed value and would bring the TVPA to between $700-$730k, contributing significantly to an increased tax value of this land.
[[File:Gilbert and Pershing.png|none|thumb|Wichita Kansas Total Value Per Acre around Gilbert and Pershing]]

== Analyzing Total Value Per Acre by Neighborhood ==
In our analysis above we use neighborhoods to describe the scenarios and differences in Total Value Per Acre as we looked at various city blocks. Then we wondered what would the data look like if we rolled up our analysis by neighborhood. Using the a neighborhood boundary dataset from Zillow that contains 72 neighborhoods for Wichita, we summed up the Total Value Per Acre analysis by neighborhood. We used QGIS' "Join Attributes by Location (Summary)" tool to compare neighborhood boundaries against blocks, and the acreage and total value were summed for each neighborhood. In addition, we counted how many blocks were found in each neighborhood. Then we added in a Total Value Per Acre value for each neighborhood that is simply (Total Appraised Value of all blocks in the neighborhood / Total acres of all blocks in the neighborhood).
{| class="wikitable sortable mw-collapsible mw-collapsed"
|+Total Value Per Acre by Neighborhood
!Name
!Number of Blocks
!Total Acres, All Blocks in Neighborhood
!Total Appraised Value, All Blocks in Neighborhood
!Total Value Per Acre
|-
|Westlink
| align="right" |19
| align="right" |119.766
| $    88,890,570
| $ 742,202
|-
|Village
| align="right" |23
| align="right" |110.491
| $    85,654,750
| $ 775,219
|-
|Uptown
| align="right" |73
| align="right" |107.093
| $    78,655,970
| $ 734,464
|-
|The Elm
| align="right" |48
| align="right" |89.607
| $    50,623,030
| $ 564,945
|-
|Sunnyside
| align="right" |57
| align="right" |129.576
| $    88,201,230
| $ 680,691
|-
|Sunflower
| align="right" |215
| align="right" |742.582
| $ 457,603,270
| $ 616,233
|-
|Stanley-Aley
| align="right" |206
| align="right" |751.606
| $ 324,737,680
| $ 432,058
|-
|Southwest Village
| align="right" |132
| align="right" |1817.954
| $ 660,439,350
| $ 363,287
|-
|Southwest
| align="right" |230
| align="right" |1598.131
| $ 871,645,400
| $ 545,415
|-
|South City Community
| align="right" |127
| align="right" |789.999
| $ 369,294,200
| $ 467,462
|-
|South Central Improvemen
| align="right" |352
| align="right" |831.97
| $ 417,844,870
| $ 502,236
|-
|South Area
| align="right" |108
| align="right" |1683.356
| $ 409,668,280
| $ 243,364
|-
|Sleepy Hollow
| align="right" |18
| align="right" |50.223
| $    52,831,050
| $ 1,051,929
|-
|Sherwood Glen
| align="right" |38
| align="right" |465.739
| $ 183,201,340
| $ 393,356
|-
|Schweiter East
| align="right" |29
| align="right" |168.082
| $    95,972,750
| $ 570,988
|-
|Schweiter
| align="right" |16
| align="right" |89.844
| $    55,739,930
| $ 620,408
|-
|Rockhurst
| align="right" |6
| align="right" |176.393
| $ 112,473,720
| $ 637,631
|-
|Riverside
| align="right" |99
| align="right" |2866.415
| $ 490,185,730
| $ 171,010
|-
|Pueblo
| align="right" |180
| align="right" |636.526
| $ 270,815,370
| $ 425,458
|-
|Power
| align="right" |53
| align="right" |140.784
| $    44,849,220
| $ 318,568
|-
|Pleasant Valley
| align="right" |21
| align="right" |407.468
| $ 153,354,900
| $ 376,361
|-
|Planeview United
| align="right" |32
| align="right" |350.741
| $    65,134,150
| $ 185,704
|-
|Park Meadows
| align="right" |9
| align="right" |206.989
| $ 147,985,790
| $ 714,945
|-
|Orchard Park
| align="right" |80
| align="right" |501.143
| $ 302,742,720
| $ 604,104
|-
|Orchard Breeze
| align="right" |84
| align="right" |502.086
| $ 217,992,420
| $ 434,173
|-
|Northwest Big River
| align="right" |39
| align="right" |242.398
| $ 179,748,600
| $ 741,543
|-
|Northeast Millair
| align="right" |36
| align="right" |567.426
| $ 167,865,430
| $ 295,837
|-
|Northeast Heights
| align="right" |72
| align="right" |1157.015
| $ 258,852,810
| $ 223,725
|-
|North Riverside
| align="right" |112
| align="right" |441.23
| $ 312,246,810
| $ 707,674
|-
|North Central
| align="right" |129
| align="right" |276.435
| $    99,061,830
| $ 358,355
|-
|New Salem
| align="right" |39
| align="right" |65.477
| $    34,239,910
| $ 522,930
|-
|Murdock
| align="right" |64
| align="right" |132.463
| $    51,898,610
| $ 391,797
|-
|Meadowlark
| align="right" |26
| align="right" |223.66
| $ 104,277,400
| $ 466,232
|-
|Mead
| align="right" |90
| align="right" |310.737
| $ 179,728,080
| $ 578,393
|-
|Mccormick
| align="right" |207
| align="right" |488.474
| $ 232,834,910
| $ 476,658
|-
|Mcadams
| align="right" |92
| align="right" |269.262
| $    92,294,380
| $ 342,768
|-
|Matlock Heights
| align="right" |48
| align="right" |174.084
| $    54,410,590
| $ 312,554
|-
|Maple Hills
| align="right" |9
| align="right" |190.202
| $ 106,535,480
| $ 560,118
|-
|Macdonald
| align="right" |22
| align="right" |318.808
| $ 195,793,310
| $ 614,142
|-
|Longview
| align="right" |16
| align="right" |46.09
| $    30,303,820
| $ 657,492
|-
|Linwood
| align="right" |71
| align="right" |124.7
| $    62,239,370
| $ 499,113
|-
|Lambsdale
| align="right" |9
| align="right" |49.668
| $    34,208,990
| $ 688,753
|-
|La Placita Park
| align="right" |32
| align="right" |234.934
| $ 149,640,920
| $ 636,949
|-
|Ken-Mar
| align="right" |40
| align="right" |168.936
| $    74,948,720
| $ 443,652
|-
|Kellogg School
| align="right" |156
| align="right" |288.63
| $ 225,730,860
| $ 782,077
|-
|K-15
| align="right" |32
| align="right" |291.324
| $    95,779,350
| $ 328,773
|-
|Jones Park
| align="right" |22
| align="right" |83.375
| $    28,632,710
| $ 343,421
|-
|Indian Hills Riverbend
| align="right" |50
| align="right" |361.937
| $ 222,209,050
| $ 613,944
|-
|Indian Hills
| align="right" |36
| align="right" |501.851
| $ 169,291,130
| $ 337,333
|-
|Historic Midtown
| align="right" |305
| align="right" |881.556
| $ 793,988,220
| $ 900,667
|-
|Hilltop - Jefferson
| align="right" |58
| align="right" |213.846
| $ 188,347,700
| $ 880,763
|-
|Hilltop
| align="right" |10
| align="right" |118.039
| $    43,639,820
| $ 369,707
|-
|Harrison Park Rk
| align="right" |7
| align="right" |239.923
| $ 165,321,230
| $ 689,060
|-
|Grandview Heights
| align="right" |30
| align="right" |269.269
| $ 120,303,050
| $ 446,776
|-
|Fairmount
| align="right" |37
| align="right" |240.454
| $ 102,234,490
| $ 425,173
|-
|Fabrique
| align="right" |60
| align="right" |225.131
| $ 136,851,260
| $ 607,874
|-
|Eastridge
| align="right" |80
| align="right" |439.586
| $ 278,168,020
| $ 632,795
|-
|East Mt Vernon Na
| align="right" |33
| align="right" |164.669
| $    94,346,650
| $ 572,947
|-
|East Front
| align="right" |56
| align="right" |93.169
| $    79,122,980
| $ 849,241
|-
|Delano Township
| align="right" |3
| align="right" |1075.363
| $    34,582,470
| $ 32,159
|-
|Delano
| align="right" |340
| align="right" |693.706
| $ 757,175,340
| $ 1,091,493
|-
|Crown Heights South
| align="right" |23
| align="right" |116.229
| $ 116,287,240
| $ 1,000,501
|-
|Crown Heights
| align="right" |34
| align="right" |116.322
| $ 135,749,090
| $ 1,167,011
|-
|Courtland
| align="right" |18
| align="right" |96.755
| $    73,787,420
| $ 762,621
|-
|Country Overlook
| align="right" |44
| align="right" |153.105
| $    92,453,020
| $ 603,854
|-
|Cottonwood Village
| align="right" |12
| align="right" |214.843
| $ 190,305,490
| $ 885,789
|-
|Comotara Mainsgate Villa
| align="right" |6
| align="right" |214.845
| $ 148,152,130
| $ 689,577
|-
|College Hill
| align="right" |127
| align="right" |466.853
| $ 621,765,490
| $ 1,331,823
|-
|Chisholm Creek
| align="right" |139
| align="right" |1915.331
| $    1,243,587,910
| $ 649,281
|-
|Central 2000
| align="right" |56
| align="right" |104.306
| $    34,903,160
| $ 334,623
|-
|Brookhollow
| align="right" |11
| align="right" |78.473
| $    92,747,710
| $ 1,181,906
|-
|Benjamin Hills
| align="right" |87
| align="right" |823.901
| $ 414,041,240
| $ 502,538
|}

== Conclusion ==
We put together this Total Value Per Acre analysis as an example of how we can analyze the areas of our city and county to understand the property tax value of different areas. We are only showing a few examples of how anyone can overlay this data on a map. We encourage anyone to look at the results and understand how we can use this data to provide guidance on our housing development decisions and policy.

== Credits ==
This data story and its content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution license.

Persons or organizations that Share or Adapt this content should provide Attribution that provides appropriate credit, which includes:

* © Copyright 2025
* Tyche Insights, P.B.C.
* [[User:WichitaDataExplorer|WichitaDataExplorer]]

For example, a data product or service that utilizes this article could include attribution such as:

"Portions derived from 'Wichita, Kansas Land Value Per Acre', © Copyright 2025 by Tyche Insights, P.B.C., WichitaDataExplorer & licensed under the CC BY 4.0 license"

[[Category:Wichita_KS]]

[[Category:TotalValuePerAcre]]
[[Category:DevelopableLand]]

Wichita, Kansas LandValuePerAcre

2025-12-03T14:17:21Z

WichitaDataExplorer: /* Data and Process */ made some basic edits for clarity

Talk:Wichita, Kansas LandValuePerAcre

2025-12-02T18:34:46Z

WichitaDataExplorer: /* First draft complete, what's next? */

Wichita, Kansas LandValuePerAcre

2025-12-02T18:31:45Z

WichitaDataExplorer: /* Data Downloads */ Added the description of the downloadable block file

Wichita, Kansas LandValuePerAcre

2025-12-02T18:27:46Z

WichitaDataExplorer: /* Data Downloads */

Wichita, Kansas LandValuePerAcre

2025-12-02T18:26:45Z

WichitaDataExplorer: added link to uploaded .zip file

File:WichitaKSBlocksWithSummaryData.zip

2025-12-02T18:25:57Z

WichitaDataExplorer:

Wichita Kansas Block Data from Land Value Per acre analysis

Talk:ReviewRequests

2025-12-02T18:21:13Z

WichitaDataExplorer: /* Review Request - Wichita KS land value per acre article */ new section

Welcome to Review Requests

The purpose of this page is for any community member to request a review of anything that they are working on at any stage:

Requests could look like...

* "I'm done with the first draft of my article..."
* "I have posted a visualization that I think informs the data story..."
* "I think that I'm performing the analysis on this data correctly, I need a second opinion..."

We want community members to assist with reviewing, validating, answering questions, providing thoughts or alternative approaches, etc. These comments (and related discussion) can go into the article's Discussion page.

All review requests are valued here! For anyone replying with assistance, remember that our goal is to assist and help.

== Review Request - Albany NY Solar article ==

I have completed a [[Albany, New York RooftopSolar|first draft of an article]] on rooftop solar installations in the City of Albany, and it is ready for review. The origin story is that I was looking through some recently FOIL'ed building permit data from the City (I have a separate article in the works on how much housing is being developed) and I noticed that I could tease out the solar installation data.

A few asks related to this review request:

* looking for general feedback
* is it easy to follow the math? can I explain the math (or the units of measure) any better?
* I'm actually a solar customer of one of the companies (Kasselman) - I don't think there is any favoritism shown in the article - should I add a disclaimer?
* any improvements that I can make on the images?

Thanks in advance and looking forward to any comments that will help improve the article!

- Karl [[User:KarlTyche|KarlTyche]] ([[User talk:KarlTyche|talk]]) 16:36, 16 November 2025 (UTC)

== Review Request - Wichita KS land value per acre article ==

Hi! I have developed my first article for Wichita KS and I have added some questions to the discussion page. I would appreciate any feedback. Article is [[Wichita, Kansas LandValuePerAcre|here]] [[User:WichitaDataExplorer|WichitaDataExplorer]] ([[User talk:WichitaDataExplorer|talk]]) 18:21, 2 December 2025 (UTC)

Wichita, Kansas LandValuePerAcre

2025-12-02T18:19:38Z

WichitaDataExplorer: added initial paragraph pointing people to the discussion page

Talk:Wichita, Kansas LandValuePerAcre

2025-12-02T18:18:47Z

WichitaDataExplorer: /* First draft complete, what's next? */ new section

User:WichitaDataExplorer

2025-12-02T18:12:44Z

WichitaDataExplorer:

I enjoy data for Central Kansas including areas that I have lived in including Hutchinson. I intend to write various articles on land, parcels and I may try out a Strong Finance decoder page.

My first article is [[Wichita,_Kansas_LandValuePerAcre]] and I am adding questions to the talk page

Category:Wichita KS

2025-12-01T19:56:27Z

WichitaDataExplorer: Created page with "Data stories for Wichita, Kansas and the Sedgwick County, KS area"

Data stories for Wichita, Kansas and the Sedgwick County, KS area

Wichita, Kansas LandValuePerAcre

2025-12-01T19:55:37Z

WichitaDataExplorer: added Categories

[[File:Wichita, Kansas skyline.jpg|none|thumb|500x500px|Wichita Skyline]]

== Wichita, Kansas Land Value Per Acre Analysis ==
The idea of creating a land value per acre map for Wichita, Kansas and Sedgwick County interests us. We are going to use [[TycheHowTo:CreateValuePerAcreMap|this process]] described in the How-to documentation.
[[File:Wichita LandValuePerAcre Overview.png|none|thumb|600x600px|Wichita Land Value Per Acre Overview]]

== Overview ==
One way to examine the utilization and value of the land use in your community is to create a Total Value Per Acre (TVPA) analysis for your town. The idea is that various areas of your city, town or county contribute to the property tax roll at different rates. Sometimes this contribution is obvious; an undeveloped one-acre parcel of land contributes less tax than a one-acre parcel of developed land. Sometimes the contributions are counterintuitive. A 2-acre property with a two million dollar home might contribute less to the property tax roll than if there were 10 0.2 acre houses on the same property.

The organization [https://www.strongtowns.org/ Strong Towns] has recently popularized the value per acre analysis in a piece that they [https://archive.strongtowns.org/journal/2020/5/5/kansas-citys-fateful-suburban-experiment wrote about Kansas City], scroll down to see the "Value Per Acre" map. In the Kansas City map they note "Where, in modern day Kansas City, is real-estate value most concentrated? We need only map the tax value per acre of properties within city limits to see that Kansas City’s highest-value land uses lie overwhelmingly within the 1910 borders."

Our goal is to create a new layer of "Blocks" where a block is a set of contiguous parcels, usually equal to a city block. For each block we will calculate the area (in acres) of the block, we will compute the sum Total Assessed Value of all of the parcels that make up the block, and lastly we will calculate the (Total Assessed Value / Area) for each block. This value - Total Value Per Acre - will give us an understanding of the relative contribution to the tax roll of each city block. Farmed land will typically have a Total Value Per Acre of < $50,000. The most developed and valuable land will have a Total Value Per Acre of over $500,000. We will then analyze larger trends within the City and look at some examples.

== Data and Process ==
This analysis uses data from the Wichita, Kansas open data site. Specifically we are using the open data parcels found [https://ict-opendata-cityofwichita.hub.arcgis.com/datasets/cc370e96c9944bb2be62fe15964f9cba_4/explore here]. The data vintage is noted as "The Dataset is updated in real time as the City or County updates their records", therefore we are considering the vintage of the source data to be November 2025. The initial parcel table for Sedgwick County contains 238315 records and the resulting Blocks table contains 12,348 records.

We will use the following fields from the source data:

* the spatial object for each parcel boundary
* OBJECTID - we will use this to track the unique block as the parcels are aggregated
* TotVal - the total value (land + improvements) for each parcel

We followed the process identified in the How-To documentation with one addition. The Wichita parcel geometries had a few geometries (~20) that were bad and prevented some spatial operations within QGIS. We chose to process the data with the advanced setting "Skip (Ignore) Features with Invalid Geometries" when performing the Dissolve and "Join Attributes by Location (Summary)" operations.

From the process we created a spatial table for our analysis, WichitaKS_Blocks_WithSummaryData.shp.

What we end up with are two layers shown in this map - parcel boundaries in brown on the bottom, and block boundaries on the top with no fill and a blue outline, where each block is labeled with its Total Value Per Acre.
[[File:Wichita BlocksAndParcels2.png|none|thumb|750x750px|Wichita Kansas Parcels overlaid with Blocks containing Total Assessed Value Per Acre]]

== Data Downloads ==
<placeholder for uploading a .zip file with WichitaKS_Blocks_WithSummaryData.shp>

== Big Picture Maps ==
In any of the images below we have created a thematic map that shows each block shaded by Total Value Per Acre. Blocks with the highest value are Blue, blocks with the lowest value are red:
[[File:BlockLegend.png|none|thumb|271x271px|Wichita Kansas Block Map Legend]]

We can start by looking at the value of property north and south of Highway 54. If you are familiar with Wichita, north of Highway 54 are neighborhoods such as Delano, College Hill, and Crown Heights, and each of these neighborhoods consists of Blocks that have higher Total Value Per Acre scores. South of Highway 54 are neighborhoods such as McCormick, Sunnyside and Hilltop-Jefferson that are a mix of Blocks that range between $250k/acre and $750+k/acre in Total Value. Further South towards East Pawnee St the Block values are typically
[[File:NorthAndSouthOf54.png|none|thumb|900x900px|Block Value per Acre, North and South of Highway 54]]

Neighborhoods such as Orchard Park, Orchard Breeze and Sunflower are interesting to compare. Housing in these neighborhoods developed between the 1920s and 1950s, however Sunflower has a slightly higher property or parcel density (slightly smaller lots). With more housing more lot, the total assessed value is higher for the same acreage. A typical Block in Sunflower will have a Total Value Per Acre of $600k, while a typical block in Orchard Park or Orchard Breeze will have a TVPA of $400k.
[[File:Orchard Sunflower.png|none|thumb|900x900px|Wichita Kansas Comparing Orchard and Sunflower neighborhoods]]

If we look at areas with housing development that occurred in the 1970s, a good sample is in the neighborhoods south of W13th St N. A neighborhood like this has Blocks with high Total Value Per Acre. This housing is relatively newer, the lot size is typically around 1/2 to 1/3 of an acre and a significant number of parcels or lots fall on each city block. This leads to Total Value Per Acre by block over $750k and frequently well over $1 million.
[[File:13thAndMaize.png|none|thumb|800x800px|Wichita Kansas Total Value Per Acre around W 13th and Maize Streets]]

Lastly, we can observe neighborhoods such as Power and North Central, each of which have a large number of Blocks that have lower Total Value Per Acre, frequently between $50k and $500k. Heavily built in the 1950s, these neighborhoods have significant numbers of properties that are undeveloped. These lots were never developed, developed then deconstructed, or utilized by adjacent property owners for gardens, parking or other uses. If we think about housing development, these are areas that should be very supportive of infill development which will add housing with no or low infrastructure requirements.
[[File:PowerAndNorthCentral.png|none|thumb|800x800px|Wichita Kansas Total Value Per Acre in the Power and North Central Neighborhoods]]

== Additional Examples ==
When we start to look at property from an overall tax yield perspective, we being to notice interesting things. These are some examples.

At E Blake St and S Market St are two city blocks divided by an alleyway. The block to the west has a Total Value per Acre of $518k; the block to the east has a value that twice as high, $1.02 million. Same neighborhood, same property parcel sizes. What is the difference? The block on the east is primarily duplexes. Duplexes drive a higher assessed value and you don't need too many of them to drive significantly higher property tax yield. And duplexes are great starter homes. And duplexes add more housing units to the community.
[[File:SouthMarket EastBlake.png|thumb|Wichita Kansas - Two blocks and their Total Value Per Acre at Blake and Market|none]]

We can look at Total Value Per Acre in affluent areas. Around E 13st St N and N Woodlawn Blvd is an area of upper incomes homes, typically $500-750k homes built between the 1950s and 1970s. These homes have large lot sizes as seen in the picture below.

[[File:13th Woodlawn Imagery.png|thumb|400x400px|Wichita KS around 13th and Woodlawn, showing houses and lot sizes|none]]

When we look at Total Value Per Acre, the value is astonishingly low. Every block has a TVPA of under $300k which may be surprising for affluent areas.

[[File:13th Woodlawn TVPA.png|thumb|400x400px|Wichita KS around 13th and Woodlawn, showing blocks and total value per acre|none]]

Finally, we can study the impact of undeveloped land on Total Value Per Acre for any block. Here are two blocks, divided by an alley at Gilbert and Pershing. The western block has a TVPA that is over 1/3 higher than the eastern block. Why? 2 out of 12 parcels that make up the eastern block are undeveloped. The eastern block currently has a Total assessed value of $1 million. Adding two houses to the undeveloped land would add $200-300k of total assessed value and would bring the TVPA to between $700-$730k, contributing significantly to an increased tax value of this land.
[[File:Gilbert and Pershing.png|none|thumb|Wichita Kansas Total Value Per Acre around Gilbert and Pershing]]

== Conclusion ==
We put together this Total Value Per Acre analysis as an example of how we can analyze the areas of our city and county to understand the property tax value of different areas. We are only showing a few examples of how anyone can overlay this data on a map. We encourage anyone to look at the results and understand how we can use this data to provide guidance on our housing development decisions and policy.

== Credits ==
This data story and its content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution license.

Persons or organizations that Share or Adapt this content should provide Attribution that provides appropriate credit, which includes:

* © Copyright 2025
* Tyche Insights, P.B.C.
* [[User:WichitaDataExplorer|WichitaDataExplorer]]

For example, a data product or service that utilizes this article could include attribution such as:

"Portions derived from 'Wichita, Kansas Land Value Per Acre', © Copyright 2025 by Tyche Insights, P.B.C., WichitaDataExplorer & licensed under the CC BY 4.0 license"

[[Category:Wichita_KS]]

[[Category:TotalValuePerAcre]]
[[Category:DevelopableLand]]

Wichita, Kansas LandValuePerAcre

2025-12-01T19:51:20Z

WichitaDataExplorer:

Wichita, Kansas LandValuePerAcre

2025-12-01T19:46:45Z

WichitaDataExplorer: /* Additional Examples */

[[File:Wichita, Kansas skyline.jpg|none|thumb|500x500px|Wichita Skyline]]

== Wichita, Kansas Land Value Per Acre Analysis ==
The idea of creating a land value per acre map for Wichita, Kansas and Sedgwick County interests us. We are going to use [[TycheHowTo:CreateValuePerAcreMap|this process]] described in the How-to documentation.
[[File:Wichita LandValuePerAcre Overview.png|none|thumb|600x600px|Wichita Land Value Per Acre Overview]]

== Overview ==
One way to examine the utilization and value of the land use in your community is to create a Total Value Per Acre (TVPA) analysis for your town. The idea is that various areas of your city, town or county contribute to the property tax roll at different rates. Sometimes this contribution is obvious; an undeveloped one-acre parcel of land contributes less tax than a one-acre parcel of developed land. Sometimes the contributions are counterintuitive. A 2-acre property with a two million dollar home might contribute less to the property tax roll than if there were 10 0.2 acre houses on the same property.

The organization [https://www.strongtowns.org/ Strong Towns] has recently popularized the value per acre analysis in a piece that they [https://archive.strongtowns.org/journal/2020/5/5/kansas-citys-fateful-suburban-experiment wrote about Kansas City], scroll down to see the "Value Per Acre" map. In the Kansas City map they note "Where, in modern day Kansas City, is real-estate value most concentrated? We need only map the tax value per acre of properties within city limits to see that Kansas City’s highest-value land uses lie overwhelmingly within the 1910 borders."

Our goal is to create a new layer of "Blocks" where a block is a set of contiguous parcels, usually equal to a city block. For each block we will calculate the area (in acres) of the block, we will compute the sum Total Assessed Value of all of the parcels that make up the block, and lastly we will calculate the (Total Assessed Value / Area) for each block. This value - Total Value Per Acre - will give us an understanding of the relative contribution to the tax roll of each city block. Farmed land will typically have a Total Value Per Acre of < $50,000. The most developed and valuable land will have a Total Value Per Acre of over $500,000. We will then analyze larger trends within the City and look at some examples.

== Data and Process ==
This analysis uses data from the Wichita, Kansas open data site. Specifically we are using the open data parcels found [https://ict-opendata-cityofwichita.hub.arcgis.com/datasets/cc370e96c9944bb2be62fe15964f9cba_4/explore here]. The data vintage is noted as "The Dataset is updated in real time as the City or County updates their records", therefore we are considering the vintage of the source data to be November 2025. The initial parcel table for Sedgwick County contains 238315 records and the resulting Blocks table contains 12,348 records.

We will use the following fields from the source data:

* the spatial object for each parcel boundary
* OBJECTID - we will use this to track the unique block as the parcels are aggregated
* TotVal - the total value (land + improvements) for each parcel

We followed the process identified in the How-To documentation with one addition. The Wichita parcel geometries had a few geometries (~20) that were bad and prevented some spatial operations within QGIS. We chose to process the data with the advanced setting "Skip (Ignore) Features with Invalid Geometries" when performing the Dissolve and "Join Attributes by Location (Summary)" operations.

From the process we created a spatial table for our analysis, WichitaKS_Blocks_WithSummaryData.shp.

What we end up with are two layers shown in this map - parcel boundaries in brown on the bottom, and block boundaries on the top with no fill and a blue outline, where each block is labeled with its Total Value Per Acre.
[[File:Wichita BlocksAndParcels2.png|none|thumb|750x750px|Wichita Kansas Parcels overlaid with Blocks containing Total Assessed Value Per Acre]]

== Data Downloads ==
<placeholder for uploading a .zip file with WichitaKS_Blocks_WithSummaryData.shp>

== Big Picture Maps ==
In any of the images below we have created a thematic map that shows each block shaded by Total Value Per Acre. Blocks with the highest value are Blue, blocks with the lowest value are red:
[[File:BlockLegend.png|none|thumb|271x271px|Wichita Kansas Block Map Legend]]

We can start by looking at the value of property north and south of Highway 54. If you are familiar with Wichita, north of Highway 54 are neighborhoods such as Delano, College Hill, and Crown Heights, and each of these neighborhoods consists of Blocks that have higher Total Value Per Acre scores. South of Highway 54 are neighborhoods such as McCormick, Sunnyside and Hilltop-Jefferson that are a mix of Blocks that range between $250k/acre and $750+k/acre in Total Value. Further South towards East Pawnee St the Block values are typically
[[File:NorthAndSouthOf54.png|none|thumb|900x900px|Block Value per Acre, North and South of Highway 54]]

Neighborhoods such as Orchard Park, Orchard Breeze and Sunflower are interesting to compare. Housing in these neighborhoods developed between the 1920s and 1950s, however Sunflower has a slightly higher property or parcel density (slightly smaller lots). With more housing more lot, the total assessed value is higher for the same acreage. A typical Block in Sunflower will have a Total Value Per Acre of $600k, while a typical block in Orchard Park or Orchard Breeze will have a TVPA of $400k.
[[File:Orchard Sunflower.png|none|thumb|900x900px|Wichita Kansas Comparing Orchard and Sunflower neighborhoods]]

If we look at areas with housing development that occurred in the 1970s, a good sample is in the neighborhoods south of W13th St N. A neighborhood like this has Blocks with high Total Value Per Acre. This housing is relatively newer, the lot size is typically around 1/2 to 1/3 of an acre and a significant number of parcels or lots fall on each city block. This leads to Total Value Per Acre by block over $750k and frequently well over $1 million.
[[File:13thAndMaize.png|none|thumb|800x800px|Wichita Kansas Total Value Per Acre around W 13th and Maize Streets]]

Lastly, we can observe neighborhoods such as Power and North Central, each of which have a large number of Blocks that have lower Total Value Per Acre, frequently between $50k and $500k. Heavily built in the 1950s, these neighborhoods have significant numbers of properties that are undeveloped. These lots were never developed, developed then deconstructed, or utilized by adjacent property owners for gardens, parking or other uses. If we think about housing development, these are areas that should be very supportive of infill development which will add housing with no or low infrastructure requirements.
[[File:PowerAndNorthCentral.png|none|thumb|800x800px|Wichita Kansas Total Value Per Acre in the Power and North Central Neighborhoods]]

== Additional Examples ==
When we start to look at property from an overall tax yield perspective, we being to notice interesting things. These are some examples.

At E Blake St and S Market St are two city blocks divided by an alleyway. The block to the west has a Total Value per Acre of $518k; the block to the east has a value that twice as high, $1.02 million. Same neighborhood, same property parcel sizes. What is the difference? The block on the east is primarily duplexes. Duplexes drive a higher assessed value and you don't need too many of them to drive significantly higher property tax yield. And duplexes are great starter homes. And duplexes add more housing units to the community.
[[File:SouthMarket EastBlake.png|thumb|Wichita Kansas - Two blocks and their Total Value Per Acre at Blake and Market|none]]

We can look at Total Value Per Acre in affluent areas. Around E 13st St N and N Woodlawn Blvd is an area of upper incomes homes, typically $500-750k homes built between the 1950s and 1970s. These homes have large lot sizes as seen in the picture below.

[[File:13th Woodlawn Imagery.png|thumb|400x400px|Wichita KS around 13th and Woodlawn, showing houses and lot sizes|none]]

When we look at Total Value Per Acre, the value is astonishingly low. Every block as a TVPA of under $300k which may be surprising for an affluent areas.

[[File:13th Woodlawn TVPA.png|thumb|400x400px|Wichita KS around 13th and Woodlawn, showing blocks and total value per acre|none]]

Finally, we can study the impact of undeveloped land on Total Value Per Acre for any block. Here are two blocks, divided by an alley at Gilbert and Pershing. The western block has a TVPA that is over 1/3 higher than the eastern block. Why? 2 out of 12 parcels that make up the eastern block are undeveloped. The eastern block currently has a Total assessed value of $1 million. Adding two houses to the undeveloped land would add $200-300k of total assessed value and would bring the TVPA to between $700-$730k, contributing significantly to an increased tax value of this land.
[[File:Gilbert and Pershing.png|none|thumb|Wichita Kansas Total Value Per Acre around Gilbert and Pershing]]

File:Gilbert and Pershing.png

2025-12-01T19:42:23Z

WichitaDataExplorer:

Wichita Kansas Total Value Per Acre around Gilbert and Pershing

Wichita, Kansas LandValuePerAcre

2025-12-01T19:38:23Z

WichitaDataExplorer: /* Additional Examples */

[[File:Wichita, Kansas skyline.jpg|none|thumb|500x500px|Wichita Skyline]]

== Wichita, Kansas Land Value Per Acre Analysis ==
The idea of creating a land value per acre map for Wichita, Kansas and Sedgwick County interests us. We are going to use [[TycheHowTo:CreateValuePerAcreMap|this process]] described in the How-to documentation.
[[File:Wichita LandValuePerAcre Overview.png|none|thumb|600x600px|Wichita Land Value Per Acre Overview]]

== Overview ==
One way to examine the utilization and value of the land use in your community is to create a Value per Acre analysis for your town. The idea is that various areas of your city, town or county contribute to the property tax roll at different rates. Sometimes this contribution is obvious; an undeveloped one-acre parcel of land contributes less tax than a one-acre parcel of developed land. Sometimes the contributions are counterintuitive. A 2-acre property with a two million dollar home might contribute less to the property tax roll than if there were 10 0.2 acre houses on the same property.

The organization [https://www.strongtowns.org/ Strong Towns] has recently popularized the value per acre analysis in a piece that they [https://archive.strongtowns.org/journal/2020/5/5/kansas-citys-fateful-suburban-experiment wrote about Kansas City], scroll down to see the "Value Per Acre" map. In the Kansas City map they note "Where, in modern day Kansas City, is real-estate value most concentrated? We need only map the tax value per acre of properties within city limits to see that Kansas City’s highest-value land uses lie overwhelmingly within the 1910 borders."

Our goal is to create a new layer of "Blocks" where a block is a set of contiguous parcels, usually equal to a city block. For each block we will calculate the area (in acres) of the block, we will compute the sum Total Assessed Value of all of the parcels that make up the block, and lastly we will calculate the (Total Assessed Value / Area) for each block. This value - Total Value Per Acre - will give us an understanding of the relative contribution to the tax roll of each city block. Farmed land will typically have a Total Value Per Acre of < $50,000. The most developed and valuable land will have a Total Value Per Acre of over $500,000. We will then analyze larger trends within the City and look at some examples.

== Data and Process ==
This analysis uses data from the Wichita, Kansas open data site. Specifically we are using the open data parcels found [https://ict-opendata-cityofwichita.hub.arcgis.com/datasets/cc370e96c9944bb2be62fe15964f9cba_4/explore here]. The data vintage is noted as "The Dataset is updated in real time as the City or County updates their records", therefore we are considering the vintage of the source data to be November 2025. The initial parcel table for Sedgwick County contains 238315 records and the resulting Blocks table contains 12,348 records.

We will use the following fields from the source data:

* the spatial object for each parcel boundary
* OBJECTID - we will use this to track the unique block as the parcels are aggregated
* TotVal - the total value (land + improvements) for each parcel

We followed the process identified in the How-To documentation with one addition. The Wichita parcel geometries had a few geometries (~20) that were bad and prevented some spatial operations within QGIS. We chose to process the data with the advanced setting "Skip (Ignore) Features with Invalid Geometries" when performing the Dissolve and "Join Attributes by Location (Summary)" operations.

From the process we created a spatial table for our analysis, WichitaKS_Blocks_WithSummaryData.shp.

What we end up with are two layers shown in this map - parcel boundaries in brown on the bottom, and block boundaries on the top with no fill and a blue outline, where each block is labeled with its Total Value Per Acre.
[[File:Wichita BlocksAndParcels2.png|none|thumb|750x750px|Wichita Kansas Parcels overlaid with Blocks containing Total Assessed Value Per Acre]]

== Data Downloads ==
<placeholder for uploading a .zip file with WichitaKS_Blocks_WithSummaryData.shp>

== Big Picture Maps ==
In any of the images below we have created a thematic map that shows each block shaded by Total Value Per Acre. Blocks with the highest value are Blue, blocks with the lowest value are red:
[[File:BlockLegend.png|none|thumb|271x271px|Wichita Kansas Block Map Legend]]

We can start by looking at the value of property north and south of Highway 54. If you are familiar with Wichita, north of Highway 54 are neighborhoods such as Delano, College Hill, and Crown Heights, and each of these neighborhoods consists of Blocks that have higher Total Value Per Acre scores. South of Highway 54 are neighborhoods such as McCormick, Sunnyside and Hilltop-Jefferson that are a mix of Blocks that range between $250k/acre and $750+k/acre in Total Value. Further South towards East Pawnee St the Block values are typically
[[File:NorthAndSouthOf54.png|none|thumb|900x900px|Block Value per Acre, North and South of Highway 54]]

Neighborhoods such as Orchard Park, Orchard Breeze and Sunflower are interesting to compare. Housing in these neighborhoods developed between the 1920s and 1950s, however Sunflower has a slightly higher property or parcel density (slightly smaller lots). With more housing more lot, the total assessed value is higher for the same acreage. A typical Block in Sunflower will have a Total Value Per Acre of $600k, while a typical block in Orchard Park or Orchard Breeze will have a TVPA of $400k.
[[File:Orchard Sunflower.png|none|thumb|900x900px|Wichita Kansas Comparing Orchard and Sunflower neighborhoods]]

If we look at areas with housing development that occurred in the 1970s, a good sample is in the neighborhoods south of W13th St N. A neighborhood like this has Blocks with high Total Value Per Acre. This housing is relatively newer, the lot size is typically around 1/2 to 1/3 of an acre and a significant number of parcels or lots fall on each city block. This leads to Total Value Per Acre by block over $750k and frequently well over $1 million.
[[File:13thAndMaize.png|none|thumb|800x800px|Wichita Kansas Total Value Per Acre around W 13th and Maize Streets]]

Lastly, we can observe neighborhoods such as Power and North Central, each of which have a large number of Blocks that have lower Total Value Per Acre, frequently between $50k and $500k. Heavily built in the 1950s, these neighborhoods have significant numbers of properties that are undeveloped. These lots were never developed, developed then deconstructed, or utilized by adjacent property owners for gardens, parking or other uses. If we think about housing development, these are areas that should be very supportive of infill development which will add housing with no or low infrastructure requirements.
[[File:PowerAndNorthCentral.png|none|thumb|800x800px|Wichita Kansas Total Value Per Acre in the Power and North Central Neighborhoods]]

== Additional Examples ==
When we start to look at property from an overall tax yield perspective, we being to notice interesting things. These are some examples.
[[File:SouthMarket EastBlake.png|left|thumb|Wichita Kansas - Two blocks and their Total Value Per Acre at Blake and Market]]

At E Blake St and S Market St are two city blocks divided by an alleyway. The block to the west has a Total Value per Acre of $518k; the block to the east has a value that twice as high, $1.02 million. Same neighborhood, same property parcel sizes. What is the difference? The block on the east is primarily duplexes. Duplexes drive a higher assessed value and you don't need too many of them to drive significantly higher property tax yield. And duplexes are great starter homes. And duplexes add more housing units to the community.

[[File:13th Woodlawn Imagery.png|left|thumb|400x400px|Wichita KS around 13th and Woodlawn, showing houses and lot sizes]]
We can look at Total Value Per Acre in affluent areas. Around E 13st St N and N Woodlawn Blvd is an area of upper incomes homes, typically $500-750k homes built between the 1950s and 1970s. These homes have large lot sizes as seen in the picture below.

[[File:13th Woodlawn TVPA.png|left|thumb|400x400px|Wichita KS around 13th and Woodlawn, showing blocks and total value per acre]]
When we look at Total Value Per Acre, the value is astonishingly low. Every block as a TVPA of under $300k which may be surprising for an affluent areas.

Wichita, Kansas LandValuePerAcre

2025-12-01T19:37:43Z

WichitaDataExplorer: Added 13th and Woodlawn example

[[File:Wichita, Kansas skyline.jpg|none|thumb|500x500px|Wichita Skyline]]

== Wichita, Kansas Land Value Per Acre Analysis ==
The idea of creating a land value per acre map for Wichita, Kansas and Sedgwick County interests us. We are going to use [[TycheHowTo:CreateValuePerAcreMap|this process]] described in the How-to documentation.
[[File:Wichita LandValuePerAcre Overview.png|none|thumb|600x600px|Wichita Land Value Per Acre Overview]]

== Overview ==
One way to examine the utilization and value of the land use in your community is to create a Value per Acre analysis for your town. The idea is that various areas of your city, town or county contribute to the property tax roll at different rates. Sometimes this contribution is obvious; an undeveloped one-acre parcel of land contributes less tax than a one-acre parcel of developed land. Sometimes the contributions are counterintuitive. A 2-acre property with a two million dollar home might contribute less to the property tax roll than if there were 10 0.2 acre houses on the same property.

The organization [https://www.strongtowns.org/ Strong Towns] has recently popularized the value per acre analysis in a piece that they [https://archive.strongtowns.org/journal/2020/5/5/kansas-citys-fateful-suburban-experiment wrote about Kansas City], scroll down to see the "Value Per Acre" map. In the Kansas City map they note "Where, in modern day Kansas City, is real-estate value most concentrated? We need only map the tax value per acre of properties within city limits to see that Kansas City’s highest-value land uses lie overwhelmingly within the 1910 borders."

Our goal is to create a new layer of "Blocks" where a block is a set of contiguous parcels, usually equal to a city block. For each block we will calculate the area (in acres) of the block, we will compute the sum Total Assessed Value of all of the parcels that make up the block, and lastly we will calculate the (Total Assessed Value / Area) for each block. This value - Total Value Per Acre - will give us an understanding of the relative contribution to the tax roll of each city block. Farmed land will typically have a Total Value Per Acre of < $50,000. The most developed and valuable land will have a Total Value Per Acre of over $500,000. We will then analyze larger trends within the City and look at some examples.

== Data and Process ==
This analysis uses data from the Wichita, Kansas open data site. Specifically we are using the open data parcels found [https://ict-opendata-cityofwichita.hub.arcgis.com/datasets/cc370e96c9944bb2be62fe15964f9cba_4/explore here]. The data vintage is noted as "The Dataset is updated in real time as the City or County updates their records", therefore we are considering the vintage of the source data to be November 2025. The initial parcel table for Sedgwick County contains 238315 records and the resulting Blocks table contains 12,348 records.

We will use the following fields from the source data:

* the spatial object for each parcel boundary
* OBJECTID - we will use this to track the unique block as the parcels are aggregated
* TotVal - the total value (land + improvements) for each parcel

We followed the process identified in the How-To documentation with one addition. The Wichita parcel geometries had a few geometries (~20) that were bad and prevented some spatial operations within QGIS. We chose to process the data with the advanced setting "Skip (Ignore) Features with Invalid Geometries" when performing the Dissolve and "Join Attributes by Location (Summary)" operations.

From the process we created a spatial table for our analysis, WichitaKS_Blocks_WithSummaryData.shp.

What we end up with are two layers shown in this map - parcel boundaries in brown on the bottom, and block boundaries on the top with no fill and a blue outline, where each block is labeled with its Total Value Per Acre.
[[File:Wichita BlocksAndParcels2.png|none|thumb|750x750px|Wichita Kansas Parcels overlaid with Blocks containing Total Assessed Value Per Acre]]

== Data Downloads ==
<placeholder for uploading a .zip file with WichitaKS_Blocks_WithSummaryData.shp>

== Big Picture Maps ==
In any of the images below we have created a thematic map that shows each block shaded by Total Value Per Acre. Blocks with the highest value are Blue, blocks with the lowest value are red:
[[File:BlockLegend.png|none|thumb|271x271px|Wichita Kansas Block Map Legend]]

We can start by looking at the value of property north and south of Highway 54. If you are familiar with Wichita, north of Highway 54 are neighborhoods such as Delano, College Hill, and Crown Heights, and each of these neighborhoods consists of Blocks that have higher Total Value Per Acre scores. South of Highway 54 are neighborhoods such as McCormick, Sunnyside and Hilltop-Jefferson that are a mix of Blocks that range between $250k/acre and $750+k/acre in Total Value. Further South towards East Pawnee St the Block values are typically
[[File:NorthAndSouthOf54.png|none|thumb|900x900px|Block Value per Acre, North and South of Highway 54]]

Neighborhoods such as Orchard Park, Orchard Breeze and Sunflower are interesting to compare. Housing in these neighborhoods developed between the 1920s and 1950s, however Sunflower has a slightly higher property or parcel density (slightly smaller lots). With more housing more lot, the total assessed value is higher for the same acreage. A typical Block in Sunflower will have a Total Value Per Acre of $600k, while a typical block in Orchard Park or Orchard Breeze will have a TVPA of $400k.
[[File:Orchard Sunflower.png|none|thumb|900x900px|Wichita Kansas Comparing Orchard and Sunflower neighborhoods]]

If we look at areas with housing development that occurred in the 1970s, a good sample is in the neighborhoods south of W13th St N. A neighborhood like this has Blocks with high Total Value Per Acre. This housing is relatively newer, the lot size is typically around 1/2 to 1/3 of an acre and a significant number of parcels or lots fall on each city block. This leads to Total Value Per Acre by block over $750k and frequently well over $1 million.
[[File:13thAndMaize.png|none|thumb|800x800px|Wichita Kansas Total Value Per Acre around W 13th and Maize Streets]]

Lastly, we can observe neighborhoods such as Power and North Central, each of which have a large number of Blocks that have lower Total Value Per Acre, frequently between $50k and $500k. Heavily built in the 1950s, these neighborhoods have significant numbers of properties that are undeveloped. These lots were never developed, developed then deconstructed, or utilized by adjacent property owners for gardens, parking or other uses. If we think about housing development, these are areas that should be very supportive of infill development which will add housing with no or low infrastructure requirements.
[[File:PowerAndNorthCentral.png|none|thumb|800x800px|Wichita Kansas Total Value Per Acre in the Power and North Central Neighborhoods]]

== Additional Examples ==
When we start to look at property from an overall tax yield perspective, we being to notice interesting things. These are some examples.
[[File:SouthMarket EastBlake.png|left|thumb|Wichita Kansas - Two blocks and their Total Value Per Acre at Blake and Market]]

At E Blake St and S Market St are two city blocks divided by an alleyway. The block to the west has a Total Value per Acre of $518k; the block to the east has a value that twice as high, $1.02 million. Same neighborhood, same property parcel sizes. What is the difference? The block on the east is primarily duplexes. Duplexes drive a higher assessed value and you don't need too many of them to drive significantly higher property tax yield. And duplexes are great starter homes. And duplexes add more housing units to the community.

We can look at Total Value Per Acre in affluent areas. Around E 13st St N and N Woodlawn Blvd is an area of upper incomes homes, typically $500-750k homes built between the 1950s and 1970s. These homes have large lot sizes as seen in the picture below.
[[File:13th Woodlawn Imagery.png|left|thumb|400x400px|Wichita KS around 13th and Woodlawn, showing houses and lot sizes]]

When we look at Total Value Per Acre, the value is astonishingly low. Every block as a TVPA of under $300k which may be surprising for an affluent areas.
[[File:13th Woodlawn TVPA.png|left|thumb|400x400px|Wichita KS around 13th and Woodlawn, showing blocks and total value per acre]]

File:13th Woodlawn TVPA.png

2025-12-01T19:35:41Z

WichitaDataExplorer:

Wichita KS around 13th and Woodlawn, showing blocks and Total Value Per Acre

File:13th Woodlawn Imagery.png

2025-12-01T19:34:52Z

WichitaDataExplorer:

Wichita KS around 13th and Woodlawn, showing houses and lot sizes

Wichita, Kansas LandValuePerAcre

2025-12-01T19:29:21Z

WichitaDataExplorer: Adding in additional examples

[[File:Wichita, Kansas skyline.jpg|none|thumb|500x500px|Wichita Skyline]]

== Wichita, Kansas Land Value Per Acre Analysis ==
The idea of creating a land value per acre map for Wichita, Kansas and Sedgwick County interests us. We are going to use [[TycheHowTo:CreateValuePerAcreMap|this process]] described in the How-to documentation.
[[File:Wichita LandValuePerAcre Overview.png|none|thumb|600x600px|Wichita Land Value Per Acre Overview]]

== Overview ==
One way to examine the utilization and value of the land use in your community is to create a Value per Acre analysis for your town. The idea is that various areas of your city, town or county contribute to the property tax roll at different rates. Sometimes this contribution is obvious; an undeveloped one-acre parcel of land contributes less tax than a one-acre parcel of developed land. Sometimes the contributions are counterintuitive. A 2-acre property with a two million dollar home might contribute less to the property tax roll than if there were 10 0.2 acre houses on the same property.

The organization [https://www.strongtowns.org/ Strong Towns] has recently popularized the value per acre analysis in a piece that they [https://archive.strongtowns.org/journal/2020/5/5/kansas-citys-fateful-suburban-experiment wrote about Kansas City], scroll down to see the "Value Per Acre" map. In the Kansas City map they note "Where, in modern day Kansas City, is real-estate value most concentrated? We need only map the tax value per acre of properties within city limits to see that Kansas City’s highest-value land uses lie overwhelmingly within the 1910 borders."

Our goal is to create a new layer of "Blocks" where a block is a set of contiguous parcels, usually equal to a city block. For each block we will calculate the area (in acres) of the block, we will compute the sum Total Assessed Value of all of the parcels that make up the block, and lastly we will calculate the (Total Assessed Value / Area) for each block. This value - Total Value Per Acre - will give us an understanding of the relative contribution to the tax roll of each city block. Farmed land will typically have a Total Value Per Acre of < $50,000. The most developed and valuable land will have a Total Value Per Acre of over $500,000. We will then analyze larger trends within the City and look at some examples.

== Data and Process ==
This analysis uses data from the Wichita, Kansas open data site. Specifically we are using the open data parcels found [https://ict-opendata-cityofwichita.hub.arcgis.com/datasets/cc370e96c9944bb2be62fe15964f9cba_4/explore here]. The data vintage is noted as "The Dataset is updated in real time as the City or County updates their records", therefore we are considering the vintage of the source data to be November 2025. The initial parcel table for Sedgwick County contains 238315 records and the resulting Blocks table contains 12,348 records.

We will use the following fields from the source data:

* the spatial object for each parcel boundary
* OBJECTID - we will use this to track the unique block as the parcels are aggregated
* TotVal - the total value (land + improvements) for each parcel

We followed the process identified in the How-To documentation with one addition. The Wichita parcel geometries had a few geometries (~20) that were bad and prevented some spatial operations within QGIS. We chose to process the data with the advanced setting "Skip (Ignore) Features with Invalid Geometries" when performing the Dissolve and "Join Attributes by Location (Summary)" operations.

From the process we created a spatial table for our analysis, WichitaKS_Blocks_WithSummaryData.shp.

What we end up with are two layers shown in this map - parcel boundaries in brown on the bottom, and block boundaries on the top with no fill and a blue outline, where each block is labeled with its Total Value Per Acre.
[[File:Wichita BlocksAndParcels2.png|none|thumb|750x750px|Wichita Kansas Parcels overlaid with Blocks containing Total Assessed Value Per Acre]]

== Data Downloads ==
<placeholder for uploading a .zip file with WichitaKS_Blocks_WithSummaryData.shp>

== Big Picture Maps ==
In any of the images below we have created a thematic map that shows each block shaded by Total Value Per Acre. Blocks with the highest value are Blue, blocks with the lowest value are red:
[[File:BlockLegend.png|none|thumb|271x271px|Wichita Kansas Block Map Legend]]

We can start by looking at the value of property north and south of Highway 54. If you are familiar with Wichita, north of Highway 54 are neighborhoods such as Delano, College Hill, and Crown Heights, and each of these neighborhoods consists of Blocks that have higher Total Value Per Acre scores. South of Highway 54 are neighborhoods such as McCormick, Sunnyside and Hilltop-Jefferson that are a mix of Blocks that range between $250k/acre and $750+k/acre in Total Value. Further South towards East Pawnee St the Block values are typically
[[File:NorthAndSouthOf54.png|none|thumb|900x900px|Block Value per Acre, North and South of Highway 54]]

Neighborhoods such as Orchard Park, Orchard Breeze and Sunflower are interesting to compare. Housing in these neighborhoods developed between the 1920s and 1950s, however Sunflower has a slightly higher property or parcel density (slightly smaller lots). With more housing more lot, the total assessed value is higher for the same acreage. A typical Block in Sunflower will have a Total Value Per Acre of $600k, while a typical block in Orchard Park or Orchard Breeze will have a TVPA of $400k.
[[File:Orchard Sunflower.png|none|thumb|900x900px|Wichita Kansas Comparing Orchard and Sunflower neighborhoods]]

If we look at areas with housing development that occurred in the 1970s, a good sample is in the neighborhoods south of W13th St N. A neighborhood like this has Blocks with high Total Value Per Acre. This housing is relatively newer, the lot size is typically around 1/2 to 1/3 of an acre and a significant number of parcels or lots fall on each city block. This leads to Total Value Per Acre by block over $750k and frequently well over $1 million.
[[File:13thAndMaize.png|none|thumb|800x800px|Wichita Kansas Total Value Per Acre around W 13th and Maize Streets]]

Lastly, we can observe neighborhoods such as Power and North Central, each of which have a large number of Blocks that have lower Total Value Per Acre, frequently between $50k and $500k. Heavily built in the 1950s, these neighborhoods have significant numbers of properties that are undeveloped. These lots were never developed, developed then deconstructed, or utilized by adjacent property owners for gardens, parking or other uses. If we think about housing development, these are areas that should be very supportive of infill development which will add housing with no or low infrastructure requirements.
[[File:PowerAndNorthCentral.png|none|thumb|800x800px|Wichita Kansas Total Value Per Acre in the Power and North Central Neighborhoods]]

== Additional Examples ==
When we start to look at property from an overall tax yield perspective, we being to notice interesting things. These are some examples.
[[File:SouthMarket EastBlake.png|left|thumb|Wichita Kansas - Two blocks and their Total Value Per Acre at Blake and Market]]

At E Blake St and S Market St are two city blocks divided by an alleyway. The block to the west has a Total Value per Acre of $518k; the block to the east has a value that twice as high, $1.02 million. Same neighborhood, same property parcel sizes. What is the difference? The block on the east is primarily duplexes. Duplexes drive a higher assessed value and you don't need too many of them to drive significantly higher property tax yield. And duplexes are great starter homes. And duplexes add more housing units to the community.

File:SouthMarket EastBlake.png

2025-12-01T19:25:54Z

WichitaDataExplorer:

Wichita Kansas - Two blocks and their Total Value Per Acre at Blake and Market

File:PowerAndNorthCentral.png

2025-12-01T19:20:07Z

WichitaDataExplorer:

Wichita Kansas Total Value Per Acre in the Power and North Central Neighborhoods

File:13thAndMaize.png

2025-12-01T19:10:48Z

WichitaDataExplorer:

Wichita Kansas Total Value Per Acre around W 13th and Maize Streets

File:Orchard Sunflower.png

2025-12-01T19:02:57Z

WichitaDataExplorer:

Wichita Kansas Comparing Orchard and Sunflower neighborhoods

File:NorthAndSouthOf54.png

2025-12-01T18:54:16Z

WichitaDataExplorer:

Block Value per Acre, North and South of Highway 54

File:BlockLegend.png

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WichitaDataExplorer:

Wichita Kansas Block Map Legend

File:Wichita BlocksAndParcels2.png

2025-12-01T18:41:18Z

WichitaDataExplorer:

Wichita Kansas Parcels overlaid with Blocks containing Total Assessed Value Per Acre

File:Wichita BlocksAndParcels.png

2025-12-01T18:37:35Z

WichitaDataExplorer:

Wichita Kansas Blocks and Parcels

Wichita, Kansas LandValuePerAcre

2025-12-01T18:29:42Z

WichitaDataExplorer: * Overview & data and process sections

File:Wichita LandValuePerAcre Overview.png

2025-12-01T18:22:58Z

WichitaDataExplorer:

Wichita Kansas Land Value Per Acre Overview

File:Wichita, Kansas skyline.jpg

2025-12-01T18:13:36Z

WichitaDataExplorer:

Wichita Skyline, Quintin Soloviev, CC BY 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Wichita, Kansas LandValuePerAcre

2025-12-01T18:08:31Z

WichitaDataExplorer: Created page with "Wichita, Kansas Land Value Per Acre"

Wichita, Kansas Land Value Per Acre

User:WichitaDataExplorer

2025-12-01T18:04:34Z

WichitaDataExplorer: Created page with "I enjoy data for Central Kansas including areas that I have lived in including Hutchinson. I intend to write various articles on land, parcels and I may try out a Strong Finance decoder page."

I enjoy data for Central Kansas including areas that I have lived in including Hutchinson. I intend to write various articles on land, parcels and I may try out a Strong Finance decoder page.