311 Complaints in NYC Income Areas

About Me

My name is Bridget Mathis, a graduate student studying Urban Policy Analysis at The New School with a specialty in Data Visualization and Analytics. My primary areas of focus have revolved around criminal activity, as well as a focus on social justice. Given these areas of interest, I had developed an initial project looking at Twitter feed data, and aggregate it to establish non-reported areas of crime. It had examined common keywords in tweets, and overlayed them with typically high crime areas to see potential correlations. This project idea however began to be relatively problematic. Keyword searches are highly subject to bias, and perception is often a faulty indicator of crime. Not only does it become subject to income bias, it is highly prejudicial and based on racial or other ethnic preconceptions. With this said, there was naturally an inherent problem moving forward with this type of analysis.

Click the image to get more information on how 311 works

The Project

That is where the new project, presented on this page, originated. With suggestion from my professor, I extracted 311 data and added extensive filtering for types of complaints that are more serious to public interest. As the dataset is incredibly large, data was limited to 2010 up until December 2016. Complaints that particularly affect living conditions, ranging from health issues to general community-wide nuisances were selected. Many New Yorkers have been forced to live in lesser conditions based on low income for years, this map helps explore if this continues to stand true. While 311 data is not a perfect representation of city conditions, given that many residents may not necessarily call in to complain, it provides slightly more insight into the struggles for New Yorkers.

As Carto only demonstrates the most prevalent few categories, all have been listed and can be searched right on the map. These include the following:

  • Derelict Vehicle
  • Animal Abuse
  • Rodents
  • Drug Activity
  • Urinating in Public
  • Indoor Air Quality
  • Mold
  • Special Enforcement
  • BEST/Site Safety
  • Asbestos
  • Panhandling
  • Eviction
  • Unsanitary Animal Facility
  • Radioactive Material
  • Vacant Lot
  • Sanitation Condition
  • Standing Water
  • Sweeping/Missed-Inadequate
  • Asbestos/Garbage Nuisance
  • Traffic/Illegal Parking
  • Maintenance or Facility

    • Methodology

    311 Data provides a myriad of opportunities for analysis. This project delves into examining different types of complaints and issues that exist in different areas throughout New York City, and conducts a cluster analysis of different complaint types within a chloropleth from Median Income Data. The intention and goal with this project is to examine the types of complaints that exist with different levels of income. Particularly, there is a focus on looking at low income areas to see if there is a notable difference in the complaint types, and if there are clusters of public health issues in these areas. After sorting through the massive dataset from NYC 311 data, I seleceted the aforementioned areas of interest as they best reflect possible issues in a community. Data sources are available underneath the map, with formats originally in .csv.

    Some Notable Results

    Many complaints were incredibly widespread, such as with rodents. However, areas that reflect blight (derelicht vehicles, vacant lots, and so forth) were much more highly found in poorer areas, along with most health hazards like asbestos. Indoor air quality did not seem to reflect by income, but rather centered heavily in Manhattan and Brooklyn. For more information and insights, these are filterable by layer on the map. Simply click on the category of your choosing or search of the other available categories.

    Sources:

    311 Data

    Median Income Data