Introduction

New York City, often called the city that never sleeps, is usually pretty loud most of the time. A combination of hectic lifestyles, dense population, and limited spaces makes it typical to hear loud noises almost anywhere you go. While there are no other places as dynamic as New York City, there are times when I want to find quiet places where I can rest to maintain my sanity. In this project, I’m going to investigate where the quiet residential places are in the city. In addition, I will also test the hypothesis that the more packed the area is, the more noisy the area is to find out if that is one of the root causes of higher noise complaints.

Materials and Methodologies

I used the dataset from NYC Open Data. The data contains 311 Service Requests from 2010 to the present time. I started by filtering the data by year (2022) and complaint type (Noise – Residential). I filtered the data before exporting to avoid downloading excessive data to my computer. After I exported the data from the website, I imported the data to Excel and deleted other fields to highlight the latitude, longitude, and descriptor type. I later added this data to ArcGIS and used it as one of the layers in my map. I used the dark gray canvas as the base of my map because I wanted the noise complaints to be the most prominent element of the map. Choosing the simplest-looking map makes a lot of sense. As the number of complaints is enormous and the symbols look overwhelming on the map, I decided to use the aggregation function. After adding the first layer to my map, I added a second layer that I found directly from ArcGIS by looking for US Total Population in the database. I added the data on population density as the second layer to compare the population and the number of complaints. The data also comes in handy as it already has the bar chart features in the pop-ups to compare the total population in 2010, 2022, and projections in 2027. I also added the description in the pop-ups to make it easier for users to see the reason behind the noise complaints.

Results

There is a clear correlation between higher population density and higher noise complaints, as seen from the map above. However, it’s also true that higher population density is not the sole reason for the higher percentage of noise complaints. We can see that the highest complaints came from the Bronx, even though the Bronx ranked fourth in terms of population density in NYC.

Reflection

Multiple factors need to be investigated regarding why some areas received higher noise complaints than others. One of the reasons might be multiple people reporting the same incident inflating the complaints. Another reason might be the residential property, such as thin walls and tight space.

Regardless of the issues, people deserve to have a quiet and calm personal space when they feel they need it. By finding out the causes of the noise complaints, there is a better chance to help improve the quality of life of New York City residents.