Social Visualisation and Data Analysis

Assignment 2

2020-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

A deep dive into crime resolution

Introduction

One of the cornerstones in any functioning society is its ability to uphold law and order, enforcíng judgement on those who break the rules and norms of the collective. An accurate and effective criminal justice system is thus a central societal institution, acting as a deterrent to those who are prone to commit criminal acts, while also ensuring that victims of a crime have a legitimate place to turn to in search of justice. In reality, however, the resources of the criminal justice system are finite and crime prevention often becomes a matter of priorities. In San Francisco, the police department have undergone multiple rounds of staffing shortage, making the resources even scarcer and the need for strategic operations of paramount importance. To gain a better understanding of the resolution of crime - and lack thereof - in San Francisco, we seek to analyse this subject using SFDP's own records on criminal activities from 2003 up until 2017.

The analysis consists of 3 parts. We start by visualizing the overall development of resolved versus unresolved crime in San Francisco through the periode (2003-2017). Then, we examine the geographical distribution and development of unresolved criminal activity, looking into the many neightborhoods of San Francisco. Finally, we scrutinize crime resolution within and between different types of criminal activity and how these have developed from 2003 until 2017.

Our Dataset

When conducting a data analysis like the one we are about to present, it is essential to be transparant and clear about one's choices regarding data cleaning and structuring process. This section is about just that. The data we use for the analysis is from the San Francisco State Department's website. The data is from 2003 up to and including mid-2018. For data consistency and comparability between years, we have excluded the data from 2018 and removed duplicates from the data. We have also taken a clear-cut approach to the concept of "solving a crime", as we classify all crimes as either resolved or unresolved. Though a more fine-grained categorization is present in the data, we do not distinguish between whether for example the crime report resulted in conviction, the complainant refused to prosecute, or if a prosecution was concluded to be unfounded, etc. All three would be classified as resolved in our analysis. Lastly we have choosen to only focus on the most prevalent types of crime. These include Weapon laws, Prostitution, Driving under the influence, Robbery, Burglary, Assault, Drunkenness, Drug/Narcotic, Trespass, Larceny/Theft, Vandalism, Vehicle theft, Stolen property, Disorderly conduct. Within these 14 types of criminal activity 1.064.374 reports have been filled between 2003 and 2017. If you want to see how we did all the data processing you can follow this link to our Github Repository

The Overall Development of Crime Resolution

We start our inspection of crime resolution in San Francisco by visualizing the overall distribution of resolved versus unresolved crime reportings by year to get an initial overview of the development.

Distribution of Resolved versus Unresolved Crime Reportings by Year

While the overall amount of criminal activity has slowly risen since 2011, the number of resolved crimes have been been steadily decreasing since 2009. In 2017, only ~10.000 out of ~80.000 crime reportings were resolved. Thus, it would look as if crime resolution is an increasing problem. As mentioned in the introduction, SFPD are continuously undergoing budget cuts, which could explain the decrease in resolved crime reportings. An alternative - or supplementary - explanation could be that an increase in crime reporting takes resources from the police department, as they have to receive and file the report, thus making it harder for them to prioritize resources in actually solving the crimes.

Now that we have a better overview of the extent of the crime resolution challenge, we can delve a little deeper. Maybe the decreasing number of resolved crimes - and increasing number of unresolved crimes - in San Francisco is driven mainly by increased criminal activity in some neighborhoods and not in all of San Francisco. In the following section, we will look into the geographical distribution and development of unresolved criminal activity.

Unresolved Criminal Activity by San Franciscan Neighborhood

The main dataset on crime reportings from SFPD contains both coordinates and district regarding the location of the crimes. With district being too broad and coordinates being to specific, we found that neighborhoods seemed to be the perfect middle ground. So, we include another dataset on neighborhood geolocation in San Francisco from the San Francisco State Department. By incorporating this data into our analysis, we can use the coordinate information from the main dataset and reverse-geocode every crime reporting into one of the 117 San Fraciscan neighborhoods.

Below, one can explore the geographical distribution of unresolved crime reports in San Francisco from 2003-2017. The plot contains three "layers" that you can access through the dropdown menu. First, it shows the geographical distribution of the total number of reported crimes. Second, it shows the share of unresolved reportings between 2003-2017 distributed into the neighborhodds. Third, it shows each neighborhood's development with regard to unresolved criminality from 2003 to 2017. The development is based on a linear regression of The share of Unresolved Crime Reportings on Years since 2003 and should be interpreted as the %-point change in a neighborhood's share of unresolved crime reportings for each passing year since 2003.

Distribution and Development in Unresolved Crime by Neighborhood

In the first "layer" of the map - displaying the total number of crime reports - it is evident that some neighborhoods suffer under a significantly higher degree of criminal activity, compared to other neighborhoods. South of Market has the highest number of reports at ~146.000 reportings, followed closely by Mission and Tenderloin. Overall, the northeastern side of San Francisco seems to have most criminal activity.

Looking into the second "layer" of the map - presenting the neighborhoods' share of unresolved crime reports - an interesting finding is that there seems to be a relatively low share of unresolved crime reportings in the aforementioned areas with the highest degree of criminal activity, i.e South of Market, Mission, and Tenderloin. Maybe the police are focusing their resources on these locations, exactly because of their high degree of criminality.

The third and final "layer" of the map shows the development of unresolved reports in the different neighborhoods since 2003. Here, we see a general - though slight - increase in the relative amount of unresolved crimes in most of the neighborhoods. This makes sense, considering what we found in the very first plot, i.e. that the amount of resolved crimes have continously decreased since 2003, while the general number of reportings have increased. Tenderloin, Golden Gate Park, and Lower Nob Hill have undergone the most negative development across the period. In the first "layer", we saw that Tenderloin is one of the areas with most criminal activity. In the third "layer", we see that on average, Tenderloin have had a 2,6%-point increase in the neighborhood's share of unresolved crime for each year since 2003. Though the neighborhood appeared to be well off judging by the share of unresolved crime across all years (see the second "layer"), the police might consider focusing their resources even further on Tenderloin to stop the negative development. On the other end of the spectrum, Parnassus Heights, Presidio National Park, Parkmerced, and Treasure Island appear to generally have succeded in bringing down their relative amount of unresolved crime since 2003. Especially Parnassus Heights and Parkmerced are interesting cases, as they do not have significantly fewer crimes in total than the other neighborhoods. Thus, it could be relevant for SFPD to look more into these two areas and take inspiration from their work.

Now that we have a better understanding of the geographical distribution of crime resolution and where the police might want to focus their resources or take inspiration from, it seems relevant to also examine if the negative development in unresolved crime is driven by a particular type of criminal activity being increasingly prevalent. Let's do that.

Unresolved Criminal Activity by Crime Type

In the plot below, we have visualised the yearly distribution of resolved versus unresolved crime reports by type of crime. One can navigate between the various crime types using the tabs in the top of the plot.

Distribution of Resolved versus Unresolved Crime Reporting by Year and Type

Inspecting the relation between crime types and resolution reveale some relevant patterns. The total amount of Larcency/theft has increase notably since 2010, while the number of resolved crimes on Larcency/theft actually have decreased slightly. This could be one of the main factors behind the overall rise in unresolved crimes in San Francisco. We also find the same pattern with Vandalism where the amount of reports has increased, while the resolved reports of Vandalism has remained steady. Weapon Laws and Trespass has increased as well, but here the amount of resolved crimes has also risen for both crime types. Vehicle Theft has seen a dramatic reduction from 2006, because of a new safety system implemented in newer cars, making them harder to steal.

The types of crime that have decreased in overall activity also appear to be the ones that are most often resolved. Prostitution, Drunkenness, Drug/Narcotic, and Driving under the influence all have a high share of resolved cases, but also seems to be following an overall downgoing trend regarding crime reports. Thus, it could seem that crimes with a high rate of resolved reports are dying out - or not getting reported - while crimes with low rates of resolved reports - such as Larcency/Theft - are becoming increasingly prevalent. This evolution of crime in San Francisco could be a main driver for the overall decrease in resolved crime reports.

Concluding Thoughts

In this mini-analysis, we have presented a short data-story on the development of crime resolution in San Francisco. We saw that both the total and relative amount of unresolved crime cases are increasing and have been doing so more or less continuously for the past two decades. We explored which neighborhoods have had the highest degree of unresolved criminal activity as well as the neighborhoods' development in that regard over the period of 2003-2017. We found that especially Parnassus Heights and Parkmerced have had a positive development with regard to lowering their relative amount of unresolved crime, while Tenderloin have seen a steady increase in its share unresolved crime. Lastly, we also examined how crime resolution in San Francisco relates to specific types of criminality. We found Lacency/Theft to be by far the most dominant type of criminal activity, becoming more and more prevalent by the year and with an increasingly low share of resolved cases.

Ultimately, crime prevention is inevitably a question of resources and priorities. Which kind of criminal activity should one solve first? and where? This small analysis shows, that over the post 20-odd years, SFPD have been dealing with a growing problem with regard to managing the slowly increasing amount of criminal activity in San Francisco. One thing is for certain: budget cuts probably doesn't make it easier.

Assignment B

2012-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

From Seed To Apple in New York City

Introduction

Let's paint the picture! A boat filled with tired but hopeful families glides across the still morning waters. They have all left their old homes for the promises and opportunities of the new world. In the distance, through the mist, a statue the size of a skyscraper breaks through the morning fog. The mood among the seaworn travellers brightens, realizing that they have finally arrived at their destination. Soon after, a skyline of actual skyscrapers paints the horizon and the bustling sounds of city life fill the air. Sounds familiar? If not, here's a picture to help!

A Hazy View of Travellers Greeting the Statue of Liberty

New York City is undeniably one of - if not the most influential and renowned city in western society. In many ways, the city encapsulates the idea of The American Dream, with its buzzing streets, opportune business life, and rich cultural scene, spawning sayings like "if you can make it here, you can make it anywhere". Pop cultural references to New York City is omnipresent in western movies, music, and art and each year millions of turists from all over the world flock to the city see all the "familiar" places in real life. The City That Never Sleeps, the Capital of the World, the Big Apple - New York City has earned itself many nicknames. The city has the second highest GDP in the world, and continues to be the largest city in the US for over 200 years with a population of around 8.5 million people today. Professor of economics at Harvard University, Edward L. Glaeser, states that "While Boston's history is one of ongoing crises and reinvention (Glaeser 2005), New York's is one of almost unbroken triumph" (Glaeser 2005:1). But what could be the explanation for New York City's urbanizational triumph over the past 200 years?

Answering this question is a complex task - way too complex for this short data story. Rather, what we seek is to gain a better understanding of New York City's so-called unbroken triumph as a city by mapping the urbanisational development in New York City's journey from a small seed to the Big Apple using open data, visualizations and statistics. First, we'll examine the history of how New York City took the physical form that we know of today with its bustling streets and 100+ story skyscrapers. Then, we turn to those who the skyscrapers were built by and for, namely the inhabitants of New York City. How did New York City come to be the continuously most populous city in the US and what role did immigration play in this part of New York City's triumph? Subsequently, we take a contemporary look at New York City and its neighborhood from the perspective of racial segregation. In a multicultural melting pot such as New York City, which geographical patterns emerge when one observe the city through a racial lens? Ultimatly, we'll synthesise the insights that we gained throughout the three abovementioned sections and discuss where to go from here. Be sure to visit our Github Repository/Explainer Notebook for a more in-depth presentation of the data processing behind our analysis. For now, let's dive right in!

"The Greatest Sunset For A Sight of New York's Skyline"

So, the title for this section is a paraphrase of a slightly longer quote by the influential - and somewhat controversial - philosopher Ayn Rand. The skyline of New York City is iconic. Just as the history of hopeful immigrants arriving to New York City on boats from Europe is a central part of the city's identity, so are its towering skyscrapers. The physical appearance of the city has come to shape its economic, social, and cultural fabric. Take for instance this very popular picture from 1932 of a band of construction workers taking their lunch break on a beam floating high above the streets of New York. The picture on the right shows the characters from the hugely popular sitcome Friends, doing more of less the same thing.

The Skyscrabers of New York City

The history of how New York City came to be The Big Apple - economicaly, socially, and culturally - thus have to include the history of how the city developed its physical form. Therefore, this will also be our point of departure.

In Figure 1, we plot a temporal heatmap of the geographical development of New York City's constructional body, dating all the way from 1800 up until 2019. The red markers represent construction for primarily residential use while the blue markers indicate commercial/industrial construction. We have also outlined the five boroughs that jointly constitutes New York City: Manhattan, Brooklyn, Bronx, Queens, and Staten Island.

Please Note: Per default, the plot is paused and the "layers" controlling whether the residential and/or commercial construction are visible are both turned off. Turn the layers on through the layer-control in the top right corner and press play to initiate the temporal animation. Otherwise, feel free to zoom in and explore the construction of New York City on your own!

Figure 1: Geographical Distribution of Residential and Commercial Construction over Time

Activating both the residential- and commercial "layer" in the map and pressing play, one can see how New York City's journey from seed to apple started with residential- and industrial life making their way from Manhattan out into Brooklyn during the 19th century. Quite quickly, starting around 1900, the map becomes rather cluttered and at times one can hardly spot any of the underlying map simply due to the excessive degree of construction. Both residential- and industrial life spread rapidly out into Queens, Bronx, and Staten Island throughout the early 20th century, ultimately taking up nearly all available space in all five boroughs.

With this broad geographical impression of how the buildings of New York City arose over the years, let's get a little more specific in how we quantify construction. After all, all buildings are not created equal and it would be unfair to equate a single story house on Staten Island with a 100+ story skyscraper in Manhattan. Figure 2 displays the accumulated number of square feet constructed within each decade between 1800-2020, with all construction before 1900 grouped together.

Figure 2: Constructed Square Feet by Decade

The relation between residential and commercial construction seems to be quite steady over time, with the highest share of commercial construction during the 1990s where approximately half of all construction was meant for commercial use. In the opposite end, the 1940s have the highest share of residential construction compared to commercial.

The immediatly most notable decade with regard to overall construction is the 1920s - a decade appropriately known as "the Roaring Twenties" or "the Prosperity Decade". More than 800 million square feet (roughly 74 square kilometers) of building space was constructed in New York City during that time. Nearing the end of a decade characterised by wealth, progression, and prosperity in the wake of World War I, the Roaring Twenties concluded with the Wall Street Crash in October of 1929, hurling not just New York City's economy, but the global economy as a whole into an economic depression called the Great Depression. Being a time of recession, this might be part of the explanation for the relatively lower degree of construction in the 1930s compared to its preceding decade. Looking at the 1940s (one of the least constructional decades in 200 years) and the noticeably lower amount of construction compared to its pre- and succeeding decades, it seemes obvious to mention World War II from 1939-1945 as the main reason behind this decrease. Moving on to the 1950s and 1960s, both decades are rather productive with regard to construction in New York City. Business was once again booming during the "the prosperous 50s" and "the happy 60s" (a danish nickname for the decade), and both periods are characterised by economic growth. Old habits die hard and - once again - a period of growth is followed by a period of recession. From a constructional standpoint, the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s stand out as being among the least productive in shaping the physical fabric of New York City - especially with regard to residential construction. From a broader, historical standpoint, the 1970s hosted a global energy crisis while both the 1970s and 1980s mark a particularly challenging period in New York City's history with regard to social challenges and crime prevention. The resemblance between New York City and Batman's crime-ridden city of Gotham does not come out of nothing. However, New York City was not the only metropolis with challenges and almost every larger cities during this period fared even worse than New York City (Glaeser 2005:20).

All in all, the constructional history of New York City tells a story about the world around it. Economic prosperity/depression, social tensions, energy crises, and world wars are all manifested in Figure 2. Now, let's nuance the picture even further and examine the history of residential- and commercial construction within each of the five boroughs of New York City.

Figure 3 presents the accumulated number of square feet constructed within each decade - just like Figure 2 - but subdivided into the boroughs of New York City.

Figure 3: Constructed Square Feet by Decade and Borough

Brooklyn and Manhattan stand out as the boroughs with the highest amount of construction during a single decade. For Manhattan, that decade is unsurprisingly the Roaring Twenties, while Brooklyn actually peaks during the Great Depression of the 1930s. Compared to the other boroughs, commercial construction has clearly been prioritized in Manhattan over the years. Today, Midtown Manhattan houses New York City's Central Business District (CBD), which also happens to be the largest CBD in the world. Based on Figure 3, the foundation for this epicenter of capitalism was primarily laid during the 1920s, a period defined by commercial transformation in Manhattan.

From Figure 3, we find that not all boroughs are effected equally by the abovementioned social, economic, and political events - or at least that the events spark different reactions. For instance, while both Brooklyn, Manhattan, Bronx, and - to some extent - Staten Island all seem to be noticably effected by World War II during the 1940s, Queens retains a rather high degree of residential construction during this time period.

Lastly, it is apparent that Staten Island has considerably fewer constructed square feet compared to the other boroughs. Contrary to the others, Staten Island experienced its most constructive decades during the later half of the 20th century. This could probably be related to the fact that other boroughs are getting more and more cramped for space, while Staten Island becomes more infrastructurally connected with the rest of New York City. For instance, the renowned Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge was built between Brooklyn and Staten Island in 1964, allowing for easier commuting between Staten Island and the many square feet of commercial space in Manhattan - maybe. This highlights the importance of critical infrastructure in managing urban space and opening up new areas for residential inflow.

A City Built By Migrants

So, we now have a broad impression of New York City's journey from seed to apple from the perspective of the city's physical structure. Next, we'll turn from looking at the construction of skyscrapers to looking at those whom the skyscrapers are built by and for - the people of New York City. Just as the skyscrapers are an integral part of New York City's identity, so is the city's history with immigrants ariving from the "old world" seeking a better life in the "new world". It's not for nothing that New York has been called a city built by migrants. We'll keep the insights from the previous section on New York City's construction in mind to hopefully attain a deeper understanding of how the residents are affected by the physical construction of the city - or maybe vice versa. For instance, what happens when a city prioritizes building commercial structures rather than residential, as is the case with Manhattan? How has this affected contemporary New York City? Let's try and find out!

Figure 4 displays the development in the population of New York City from 1900 to 2020 within each of the five boroughs and in New York City in total. Population projections for the estimated population in 2030 and 2040 are presented with dotted lines.

Figure 4: Population by Borough from 1900-2040

In Figure 4, we see that the population of New York City grew most rapidly during the early 20th century, roughly doubling in size from 1900 to 1950. Subsequently, however, the population growth staggered and even decreased between 1970 and 1980. Since then, the overall population has been steadily increasing for each decade, and based on the population projection, this growth will continue in the coming decades.

Looking at the individual boroughs, Brooklyn and Queens have undergone the most significant population growth, with Brooklyn overtaking Manhattan as the most populous borough during the 1920s, and Queens clocking in on second place sometime during the 1950s. Recalling Figure 3, we learned that construction in Brooklyn and Queens was mostly focused on residential buildings, whereas Manhattan to a higher degree prioritized commerical construction. We now see, that while Manhattan started off as the most populous borough in 1900 - housing nearly half of New York City's population at the time - it's population has steadily decreased throughout the 20th century and will continue to do so judging bý the population projections. Soon, Bronx will probably also overtake Manhattan. The decreasing population in Manhattan is most likely a direct result of the borough's evolution into being the Central Business District of the world, thus pushing citizens out into the other boroughs.

Furthermore, we also recall from Figure 3 that construction generally descreased significantly during the 1940s in all boroughs aside from Queens. In Figure 4, we see that while Brooklyn, Manhattan, Bronx, and Staten Island hardly had any population inflow, the population in Queens actually increased quite noticably during this time. We also see, that the decrease in New York City's overall population during the challenging 1970s is primarily caused by a decrease in the population in Brooklyn and Bronx, as well as a stagnation in Queens's population growth. Though Glaeser (2003) argues that New York City did relatively well during this period of time, living in New York City in the 1970s was not "all beer and skittles". To make matters worse, the already ongoing fiscal crisis was amplified by a large movement of middle-class residents out of the city into the suburbs, leaving a hole in the city's tax revenue reserve. This movement is apparent in Figure 4.

Also in Staten Island, we see that the population is tightly linked to the constructional activity of the borough. Staten Island has a relatively small population compared to the other boroughs, but is steadily increasing its population - mostly so during the later half of the 20th century. As mentioned in Figure 3, this is probably related to the construction of critical infrastructure, such as bridges, connectiong Staten Island to the rest of New York City.

Now, let's zoom in on those who allegedly built the city; migrants - or more specifically, immigrants. Figure 5 consists of two parts; On top, it presents the foreign born population of New York City and its boroughs from 1900 to 2010. Below, the share of foreign born relative to the total population is plotted.

Figure 5: Foreign Born Population by Borough from 1900-2010

Alright, so we are back at the picture from the introduction where seaborne travellers greet the Statue of Liberty hello. In Figure 5, it is apparant that especially Manhattan consisted of a rather large share of foreign borns at the entrance to the 20th century, with almost half (corresponding to roughly 1 million people) of Manhattan's population being born in a different country in 1910. However, throughout the following decades, all the way up until 1970, Manhattan has seen a constant decrease both in the total number of foreign borns and their relative share of the total population. In 1970, only about 20% - or 500.000 people - of Manhattans population were foreign born. In fact, all of the boroughs - aside from Queens - saw a decrease in both the total and relative number of foreign borns from around 1930 to 1970 - recall from Figure 4 that New York City generally experienced a population growth during this period. We now know that this growth cannot be attributed to an inflow of foreign born migration. The drop in both the total number and the share indicate that the decrease in the foreign born population is not due to a general migration out of the boroughs of New York City, but rather because specifically the foreign born population either moves out or - well - dies. In 1921, the United States enforced a new immigration policy called the Emergency Quota Act, which restricted immigration quite heavily based on the nationalities of those already residing in the US. The Emergency Quota Act is a central part of US immigration history and is inevitably reflected in Figure 5.

From 1970 and onward, all boroughs have undergone a steady increase in foreign born residents - both in total and in the share of the population. In 1965, the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 was passed, abolishing the Emergency Quota Act of 1921 in favor of a less restrictive - and less discriminating - immigration policy. The effects of this law are obvious in Figure 5. The increasing foreign born population could also have something to do with the abovementioned movement of middle-class residents out of the city and into the suburbs, leaving space for foreign born residents to take up. Especially Queens have had a noticable inflow of foreign born residents. Almost inversely mirroring the development in Manhattan, Queens have gone from housing hardly any foreign born residents in 1900, to having roughly 1 million foreign born inhabitants in 2010, constituting nearly half of the boroughs population.

Bus-Proof Overpasses and Racial Segregation

New York City's triumph - as described by Glaeser (2005) - is undeniable but also rather simplified. Maybe even somewhat sugar coated. Yes, New York City is populous and contributed with a high GDP, but the city is not without its problems. We have already talked about the social distress during the 1970, with soaring crime rates, heroin and cocain abuse, and corruption. Another example of the city's history with social tension is the infamous and contested story about instructions to design certain overpasses to be too low for busses to go under them in order to keep black and Puerto Rican families away from certain areas. These racial groups would generally not own cars, thus relying on busses for transportation. Whether true or not, the existence of such stories reflects that racial tension and challenges is not a foreign debate in New York City. This section will look further into this debate.

Condensing everything we have learned, we now have a broad but solid impression of the evolution of both the physical and social development of New York City over the previous 100-odd years. Next, we wish to take a more contemporary look at New York City and how its physical and social development manifests itself in the city's residential composition today. Concretely, we want to take a look at neighborhood segregation in New York City from a racial perspective. In a multicultural melting pot such as New York City, which geographical patterns emerge when one observe the city through a racial lens. For instance, how is the relatively high degree of commercial construction in Manhattan during the 20th century reflected in the characteristics of contemporary Manhattanites?

Figure 6 show the respective share of white-, black-, asian- and hispanic/latino residents within each neighborhood of New York City. Switch between racial groups using the drop-down menu in the plot. The data is based on self-reported racial affiliation in the American Community Survey where respondents are able to choose multiple races to accommodate for mixed-race citizens. Thus, the reported share can in principle sum to more than 100% within a neighborhood.

Figure 6: New York City's Racial Composition in 2021

Overall, Figure 6 shows that the neighborhoods of New York City are highly segregated with regard to racial characteristics. Some neighborhoods are almost inhabited entirely by residents belonging to the same single racial group. The white population is the most prevalent in New York City, mainly clustered in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Staten Island. The asian population seem to live rather close to the white population. Notice for instance the small enclave in the southern tip of Manhattan (Chinatown) or the one in the western part of Brooklyn. Other than that, the asian population is mostly concentrated in the northern part of Queens. The black population is more prevalent than the asian population and is mainly concentrated over two larger areas in the southern parts of Brooklyn and Queens. Bronx also houses a noticable share of the black population. This borough, however, is predominantly inhabited by the hispanic/latino population, who also appear to have a community in the northern part of Queens. For a side-by-side comparison of the distribution of all four racial groups, click this link.

Zooming in on a particular neighborhood, Jackson Heights in the north-western part of Queens has been described as an ideal example of the diversified "melting pot" of people and cultures that New York City is often praised for being. The neighborhood has a high share of foreign born residents, 100+ languages spoken, and allegedly affordable housing prices - at least compared to Manhattan. In Figure 6, we see that Jackson Heights does contain a rather diverse mix of white-, asian- and hispanic/latino residents. However, the neighborhood only have a modest share of black citizens, ranging between 1 and 3 percent.

Maybe the idea of New York City as a highly diversified melting pot is not exactly the most fitting concept in relation to contemporary residential patterns of the different racial groups in New York City - definitely not generally speaking. Rather, Figure 6 displays a city characterized by a rather remarkable degree of racial segregation, with various enclaved communities scattered across the city and a noticable predomination of white residents on Staten Island and Manhattan. Recalling the question posed in the introduction to this section, a general characteristic of the contemporary Manhattanite would be that he/she is white...generally. Nearing the end of our data driven story about New York City's "triumphant" journey from seed to apple, we invite the reader to interact with Figure 6, exploring specific neighborhoods and their racial composition on their own.

Concluding Thoughts and What's Next?

We started our data story by pondering over New York's unbroken triumph as a city throughout the previous 200 years and counting. We sat out to gain a better understanding of New York City's triumphant journey from a small seed to the Big Apple by mapping the city's urbanisational development over the years using open data, visualisations, and statistics.

What have we learned? First, we saw how the constructional history of New York City tells a story about the world around it - both globally and domestically. Economic prosperity/depression, social tensions, energy crises, and world wars are all manifested in the buildings of New York. We also saw how a continuous prioritization of commercial construction in Manhattan throughout most of the 20th century - with a particular effort during the Roaring Twenties - allowed the borough to evolve into a capitalistic epicenter, earning Manhattan the title of the largest Central Business District in the world and positioning it as the second highest GDP in the world. Furthermore, we explored how varying legislative action toward immigration on a national level have affected both the general and the foreign born population of New York City - a city built by migrants. Lastly, we found that the idea of New York City as a highly diversified melting pot is not exactly the most fitting concept in relation to contemporary residential patterns of the different racial groups in the city. Thus, the triumphant story of New York City is not without "spectres at the feast".

What's next? We are well aware that our data narrative only tells a fraction of the story of New York City. However, it most certainly is part of the city's story. An exaustive mapping of all the numerous factors that have played a part in creating New York City is too extensive and complex for this format. We have some ideas though, on where one could continue. In the beginning of this data story, we cited Ayn Rand for saying: “The Greatest Sunset for a Sight of New York’s Skyline”. Perhaps it could be equally interesting to look elsewhere. For further data driven examination of how New York City came to be a renowned metropolis, we would find it interesting to look at the social consequences of the construction of various forms of critical infrastructure over time. We already touched upon it a bit with the construction of Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge or the story of overpasses unfit for busses. It could be interesting to dive even deeper into how single structures reflect and affect the social, economic, and policial climate of a given time. Another point of departure for future exploration, could be to build upon our examination of the historical populations in the boroughs of New York City and look at the development of and relation between housing prices and migrational flows into, between, and out of the five boroughs - perhaps using a network theoretical approach.

For now, we have only caught a glimps of the story that resides in the iconic city of New York - but what a glimps it was!

Data

Click this link to see how we did the data processing: Github Repository/Explainer Notebook

References

Articles

Campanella, Thomas J. 2017: "Robert Moses and His Racist Parkway, Explained", Bloomberg, Available at: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-07-09/robert-moses-and-his-racist-parkway-explained

citymayors 2020: "The 150 richest cities in the world by GDP in 2020", Available at: - http://www.citymayors.com/statistics/richest-cities-2020.html

Cohn, D´vera 2015: "How U.S. immigration laws and rules have changed through history", pewresearch.org, Available at: https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2015/09/30/how-u-s-immigration-laws-and-rules-have-changed-through-history/

DiNapoli, Thomas P. and Kenneth B. Bleiwas 2016: "The Role of Immigrants in the New York City Economy", Report 7-2016, State of New York Comptroller, Available at: https://www.osc.state.ny.us/files/reports/osdc/pdf/report-7-2016.pdf

exploros 2023: "Economy in the 1950", Available at: https://www.exploros.com/summary/Economy-in-the-1950s

Glaeser, Edward L. 2005: "Urban Colussus: Why is New York America´s Largest City", Economy Policy Review. Available at: https://www.newyorkfed.org/medialibrary/media/research/epr/05v11n2/0512glae.pdf

localize 2020:"What are the most diverse neighborhoods in NYC?", Available at: https://www.localize.city/blog/what-are-the-most-diverse-neighborhoods-in-nyc/

Miller, Donald 2014: "Build for Business: Midtown Manhattan in the 1920s", entrepeneur, Available at: https://www.entrepreneur.com/growing-a-business/built-for-business-midtown-manhattan-in-the-1920s/239257

Sterbenz, Christina 2013: "New York City Used To Be A Terrifying Place", businessinsider, Available at: https://www.businessinsider.com/new-york-city-used-to-be-a-terrifying-place-photos-2013-7?r=US&IR=T

Venstre 2023, "De Glade Tressere", Available at: https://www.venstre.dk/partiet/skoleweb/politisk-historie/velfaerd-og-vaelgerskred/de-glade-tressere

Wikipedia Pages

Central Business District

Emergency Quota Act

Fiscal crisis in the 1970s New York City

Millions of turists visit New York City

National restiction law

Neighborhood for Census Tract

The global energy crisis in the 1970s

The Great Depression

The Prosperity Decade

The Wall Street Crash in October of 1929

Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge

Special Thanks

https://github.com/python-visualization/folium/issues/1062

https://tilemill-project.github.io/tilemill/docs/guides/advanced-legends/

Social Visualisation and Data Analysis

Assignment 2

Introduction

Our Dataset

The Overall Development of Crime Resolution

Distribution of Resolved versus Unresolved Crime Reportings by Year

Unresolved Criminal Activity by San Franciscan Neighborhood

Distribution and Development in Unresolved Crime by Neighborhood

Unresolved Criminal Activity by Crime Type

Distribution of Resolved versus Unresolved Crime Reporting by Year and Type

Concluding Thoughts

Assignment B

Introduction

A Hazy View of Travellers Greeting the Statue of Liberty

"The Greatest Sunset For A Sight of New York's Skyline"

The Skyscrabers of New York City

Figure 1: Geographical Distribution of Residential and Commercial Construction over Time

Figure 2: Constructed Square Feet by Decade

Figure 3: Constructed Square Feet by Decade and Borough

A City Built By Migrants

Figure 4: Population by Borough from 1900-2040

Figure 5: Foreign Born Population by Borough from 1900-2010

Bus-Proof Overpasses and Racial Segregation

Figure 6: New York City's Racial Composition in 2021

Concluding Thoughts and What's Next?

Data

Dataset 1: Land Use in New York

Dataset 2: Population Development and Foreign Born Population of New York

Dataset 3: The Racial Population in New York City Neighboorhoods

References

Articles

Wikipedia Pages

Special Thanks