Introduction
Maps are the most effective geo infographic to communicate multiple information in a single graph. People can quickly absorb information such as regional weather forecasts, distribution of facilities, natural resources, and natural disasters through one glance. I’m exuberant about building my own reference map with this map project as I am a coffee connoisseur and food savvy. So what is a sidewalk café? According to NYC planning, there are three types of sidewalk café: enclosed sidewalk cafe, unenclosed sidewalk cafe, and small unenclosed sidewalk cafe. For this report, I would like to delve into the distribution of sidewalk cafés in 5 boroughs of New York City, to discover which neighborhood has the densest sidewalk cafés, and potentially unveil the hidden patterns.
Visual References and Inspiration
I saw this interesting interactive sidewalk cafés map(Left) for New York City. It allows visitors to explore all the local operating licensed businesses. Especially in this critical period of time, it is quite helpful for consumers to find out if their favorite local dining joints are still up and running. A lot of restaurants and bars were forced to shut down their businesses due to the COVID impact. Sadly, I found the information is not up to date, right after I matched the search result with Google Map. Also, the visualization has more to improve. The interface design is a bit stale which reminds me of Gephi. The use of color is dull and not attractive. When you hover over the dot, it shows the documented info of the café but not seems to be relevant information for the most eaters. Also there is no visual cue. I wonder who their target audiences are. On the other hand, I used Google Map for the same search “ Café Kitsuné ”, it(Right) immediately pops up a picture that was most likely contributed by the local guide which helps users decide if this place is worth visiting. It reveals information like review, price range, location and operation hour.
Process and Visualization Methodology
The Datasets
To design the map, I utilized 5 data sources, 2020 Census Tracts (Clipped to Shoreline) and Neighborhood Name datasets from NYC Planning official data library; Sidewalk Café Regulations GIS: Shapefile, Sidewalk Café Licenses and Applications, and FRESH Food Stores Zoning Boundaries from NYC OpenData. I thought it’s essential to understand the definition of three types of sidewalk café, it might have affected where they are situated due to zoning constraints. Enclosed sidewalk cafe: an enclosed area on the public sidewalk in front of the restaurant that is constructed predominantly of light materials such as glass, plastic, or lightweight metal. Unenclosed sidewalk cafe: An outdoor area on the public sidewalk in front of the restaurant that contains removable tables and chairs. Small unenclosed sidewalk cafe: An unenclosed sidewalk café containing no more than a single row of tables and chairs next to the building. The tables and chairs can occupy no more than 4 feet, 6 inches of the public sidewalk.
Tools
CARTO is a cloud-based computing platform that processes GIS, web-mapping, and spatial data. It is powerful in creating layers of maps and customized data filters before migrating to the current platform. I have seen a plethora of map examples made out of Carto and I really liked how it makes interaction with maps so intuitive and easy. Though the new platform has a lot of restrictions, such as limited imported file formats, hidden design features and the platform froze a couple times while I was playing around with the filters and color options.
Method and Colors
BASE LAYER
I chose the darker matter from Carto. Not just for the aesthetic matter but also because the dark background makes a strong contrast for my final visualization results. Also, it’s potentially less harmful to the viewer’s eyes.
FIRST LAYER-Borough Name
SECOND LAYER-Sidewalk Cafés Shapefile(Café Type)
THIRD LAYER-Sidewalk Café Licenses and Application
I used heatmap in order to discover the density of sidewalk cafés mostly situated in which neighborhoods.
FOURTH LAYER-Fresh Food( zoning incentives )
FIFTH LAYER-Neighborhood Name
In order to increase the readability, I highlighted font and put this layer on the top.
Results
I aggregated 5-layer datasets for my final map. My data manipulation reveal some interesting results. From the clustered of the heatmap, Manhattan among 5 other boroughs has densest sidewalk cafés. Neighborhoods like Upper East and West Side, Hell’s Kitchen, West Village, SoHo, Little Italy, and Tribeca covered most of sidewalk café businesses in Manhattan. Also, sidewalk cafés seem located in reverse fresh food zoning incentives area.
Reflection
Maps have been an irreplaceable part of my life, I used to travel frequently for work. Google Maps helped me to get around in a foreign city freely with its comprehensive information built by the worldwide local-guide contributors and I’m proud to be one of them to build the maps community. Throughout this semester, I deeply realized the value of data scientists and am amazed by their data parsing skills. Many times, the limitation for an information visualization project is all about getting the accurate dataset and right data format. Despite how you conceptualized the data in your head the final visual results and interpretation could be varied because the constraints of data. I tried to speculate the correlation of sidewalk cafés with other datasets. For one in particular-rat sightings, I tried cleaning data from Rat Sightings with OpenRefine. However, I failed to import data to Carto, it kept showing a wrong message. For the future direction, I would like to validate my proposition about the positive correlation between sidewalk cafés density and rat sightings. Also, I would love to explore Carto features like temporal and interactive maps and import photos and icons for reference maps.
Sources
“Bytes of the Big Apple™.” BYTES of the BIG APPLE – DCP, https://www1.nyc.gov/site/planning/data-maps/open-data.page.
Carto. “Better U.S. Boundaries through Shoreline Clipping.” CARTO, 7 June 2016, https://carto.com/blog/tiger-shoreline-clip/.
“Fresh Food Stores Zoning Boundaries.” NYC Open Data, https://data.cityofnewyork.us/Business/FRESH-Food-Stores-Zoning-Boundaries/w9uz-8epq.
Meyer, David. “City Planning Approves Permanent Outdoor Dining in NYC; City Council to Vote Next.” New York Post, New York Post, 16 Nov. 2021, https://nypost.com/2021/11/15/city-planning-approves-permanent-outdoor-dining-in-nyc-council-vote-next/.
“NYC Department of Consumer and Worker Protection (DCWP).” NYC Business, Consumer Affairs, Department Of, https://www1.nyc.gov/nycbusiness/description/sidewalk-cafe-license.
“Rules for Special Areas.” Zoning Districts & Tools: Sidewalk Cafes – DCP, https://www1.nyc.gov/site/planning/zoning/districts-tools/sidewalk-cafes.page.
“Sidewalk Café Regulations GIS: Shapefile.” NYC Open Data, https://data.cityofnewyork.us/City-Government/Sidewalk-Caf-Regulations-GIS-Shapefile/qsuf-mgjh.