The highest concentration of graffiti documented is in the Bronx. The second is Manhattan. Looking closer at the police precincts level, the amount of graffiti is higher around the the border of Manhattan and Brooklyn, and the lower part of the Bronx. Queens and Staten Island seem to have the least amount of graffiti.
These areas of higher graffiti correlate to the distribution of the broken parking meters in New York City, but not the damaged trees. All the collected data deals with the decay of the city, but broken parking meters specifically connects to crime. This could suggest a relation to graffiti as a crime instead of a cleaning problem of the city, but with the data it is hard to make that assertion. To make a more accurate depiction, the parking meters and trees should have been divided by the total amount of the trees and meters, instead of the area. That data, however, isn’t available.
Also the fact that the Bronx has the least percent of open cases doesn’t mean that the area is doing the best for cleaning the city. The data saying a case is closed means the city followed up with an complaint. It does not necessarily mean it clean the graffiti. It depended on the situation. However, the situations in which a cleaning crew was dispatched, the majority of the time it was cleaned. If I had more time it would have been interesting to go further with this project, mapping out each of the resolution actions and seeing which precincts have a higher percentages of a certain type of action or complaint. Also it would have been interesting to see what areas have a higher reporting from non-owners verses owners. I think this data can lead to a better understanding of these communities and their involvement.
