An Extremely Detailed Map of New York City Neighborhoods

Using survey data, responses from community boards & city council members, and over 37,000 responses from NYC residents, a team at the NY Times has made a detailed map of the 350+ distinct neighborhoods in NYC. From a companion article:

It’s a New York pastime to gripe that neighborhoods are invented and defined by real estate brokers, developers and other city gatekeepers. But the more interesting truth may be that they are also reinvented and reinforced, refracted through race and class, by us: by the air traffic controller who lives in Little Yemen, by the Manhattan community manager who’s sure his constituents live in East Harlem — and not “Upper Carnegie Hill” — and by the Brooklyn residents who decided to name a relatively flat piece of land Boerum Hill.

A name has power. It can foreshadow who will be moving in. By itself, it can conjure so much: gentrification, displacement, inequality, status. When we argue over names, or even invent new ones, we may be trying to exert some of that power — or lamenting that others have more power than we do.

We asked New Yorkers themselves to map their neighborhoods and to tell us what they call them. The result, while imperfect, is probably the most detailed map of the city’s neighborhoods ever compiled.

The article is interesting throughout:

Our map reveals two main kinds of divisions: sharp ones and fuzzy ones.

The fuzzy ones often reflect areas in transition or dispute, where there’s no consensus or where gentrification is rewriting boundaries in real time.

The sharp ones often reflect features of the landscape itself: wide avenues, highways, remnants of canals. When you cross the street, you know you’re in another neighborhood.

Next time I’m in NYC, I’m definitely going to Little Yemen for lunch.

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