The Child Care Desert Map below shows how many children were competing for one slot in a nearby licensed child care facility suitable for their age. An area having three or more children competing for one slot, or without providers, is considered to be a “child care desert,” following the methodology of the Center for American Progress. Two maps are available: 1) Zip Code-Level Child Care Deserts and 2) County-Level Child Care Deserts. Information on the licensed child care providers is updated daily from the Great Start to Quality database, which connects with Michigan’s Licensing and Regulatory Affairs (LARA). The number of licensed slots are estimated based on the ages of children served by a provider and the provider's total licensed capacity. To learn more about this map, its methods, or references, click here. To help show Michigan’s child care deserts interact with community characteristics, the map illustrates the following characteristics by Census tract:

• Brandeis University’s Child Opportunity Level: An estimate of the local resources available to children in an area, ranging from "very low" to "very high" based on Michigan's state averages.
• Geographic Type: Whether an area is rural, a town, a suburb, or a city.
• Population Density: An estimate of the number of children in an area, ranging from “very low” to “very high” based on five percentiles.