Data Points

A question I am getting a lot, particularly from the PropTech/Real Estate vertical, is what the differences are between the many types of neighborhood boundaries. I pulled some data for NYC to help visualize it:

Here you can see the island of Manhattan with yellow boundaries distinguishing "Macro-Neighborhoods."


For example, if we select one we see the Macro-Neighborhood's name is Downtown Manhattan.


We can then visualize a "Neighborhoods" layer. These fall within the Macro-Neighborhoods.
If we select one falling within the Downtown Manhattan Macro-Neighborhood we selected before, we can see its name- Lower East Side.


Going down another level, we can add in "Sub-Neighborhoods." These fall within Neighborhoods, and thus within Macro-Neighborhoods.
Here we have selected a Sub-Neighborhood from the Lower East Side called Cooperative Village.


From Sub-Neighborhoods we can go even deeper by adding in "Residential Neighborhoods." These polygons represent neighborhoods that are over 90% residential.  Here's a Residential Neighborhood falling within the Sub-Neighborhood of Cooperative Village, Seward Park Cooperative.

Here is a screenshot of all of these layers together in NYC. I find visualizing it on the map helps illustrate the differences. 

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Briana Brown
Data Product Management & Marketing
New York, NY
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Thanks for the visual description on Neighborhood hierarchies Briana.     How about in rural areas where neighborhood coverage isn't as pronounced?   What other data layers would you fall back to?   Census Places and MCD's?  Postal boundaries?   Thank you.

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[Chris] [Mabey]
[Sr. Manager]
[Pitney Bowes Software and Data Solutions]
[White River Jct.] [Vermont]
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Original Message:
Sent: 03-05-2019 13:08
From: Briana Brown
Subject: Types of Neighborhood Boundaries

A question I am getting a lot, particularly from the PropTech/Real Estate vertical, is what the differences are between the many types of neighborhood boundaries. I pulled some data for NYC to help visualize it:

Here you can see the island of Manhattan with yellow boundaries distinguishing "Macro-Neighborhoods."


For example, if we select one we see the Macro-Neighborhood's name is Downtown Manhattan.


We can then visualize a "Neighborhoods" layer. These fall within the Macro-Neighborhoods.
If we select one falling within the Downtown Manhattan Macro-Neighborhood we selected before, we can see its name- Lower East Side.


Going down another level, we can add in "Sub-Neighborhoods." These fall within Neighborhoods, and thus within Macro-Neighborhoods.
Here we have selected a Sub-Neighborhood from the Lower East Side called Cooperative Village.


From Sub-Neighborhoods we can go even deeper by adding in "Residential Neighborhoods." These polygons represent neighborhoods that are over 90% residential.  Here's a Residential Neighborhood falling within the Sub-Neighborhood of Cooperative Village, Seward Park Cooperative.

Here is a screenshot of all of these layers together in NYC. I find visualizing it on the map helps illustrate the differences. 

------------------------------
Briana Brown
Data Product Management & Marketing
New York, NY
------------------------------

Hi Chris,

I'll add some information about our boundary coverage...  It depends on what your specific use case is, but it's a great question to ask.   In the USA Neighborhood boundaries are found in the major metro areas.   Census Places and municipalities will provide some additional coverage representing cities and towns throughout the country but will not provide broad, contiguous coverage.  So a customer who wants to get 'an answer' for what locality they are in everywhere they drop a point won't be able to do that with just NBR's or places.   

This brings us to your suggestions - MCD's and ZIP codes.   Both offer much more complete coverage of the USA.   MCD's however are truly only available in 29 states where there are governmental administrative divisions of a county that are in place. Townships and Precincts are examples.   In the 21 states that do not have MCDs, mostly in the South and the West, the Census Bureau designates Census County Divisions (CCDs).    In New Hampshire where I live an MCD gives you a good name but in Tennessee it is named by the Census Bureau and the name may not make any sense to a client who is familiar with that area.  ZIP Codes have preferred names and our postal polygons offer vast coverage of the USA.  This can be one of the most granular levels commonly available in rural areas to provide a locality name to those areas.  Even here though there are caveats.  The ZIP Code name is not necessarily going to give you the same administrative name or name people would identify with and there will be very rural/remote areas that don't have postal service so the name on the boundary may not be representative of the specific area the point is dropped. 

We are currently exploring the idea of creating a best of both worlds approach incorporating MCD's in the 29 states and merged polygons based on preferred names (postal localities) and having this as a feature in our cities product concept we are working on.

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John Tagliaferro
Product Manager LI Data
PITNEY BOWES SOFTWARE, INC
White River Junction, VT
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Original Message:
Sent: 03-26-2019 09:08
From: Chris Mabey
Subject: Types of Neighborhood Boundaries

Thanks for the visual description on Neighborhood hierarchies Briana.     How about in rural areas where neighborhood coverage isn't as pronounced?   What other data layers would you fall back to?   Census Places and MCD's?  Postal boundaries?   Thank you.

------------------------------
[Chris] [Mabey]
[Sr. Manager]
[Pitney Bowes Software and Data Solutions]
[White River Jct.] [Vermont]

Original Message:
Sent: 03-05-2019 13:08
From: Briana Brown
Subject: Types of Neighborhood Boundaries

A question I am getting a lot, particularly from the PropTech/Real Estate vertical, is what the differences are between the many types of neighborhood boundaries. I pulled some data for NYC to help visualize it:

Here you can see the island of Manhattan with yellow boundaries distinguishing "Macro-Neighborhoods."


For example, if we select one we see the Macro-Neighborhood's name is Downtown Manhattan.


We can then visualize a "Neighborhoods" layer. These fall within the Macro-Neighborhoods.
If we select one falling within the Downtown Manhattan Macro-Neighborhood we selected before, we can see its name- Lower East Side.


Going down another level, we can add in "Sub-Neighborhoods." These fall within Neighborhoods, and thus within Macro-Neighborhoods.
Here we have selected a Sub-Neighborhood from the Lower East Side called Cooperative Village.


From Sub-Neighborhoods we can go even deeper by adding in "Residential Neighborhoods." These polygons represent neighborhoods that are over 90% residential.  Here's a Residential Neighborhood falling within the Sub-Neighborhood of Cooperative Village, Seward Park Cooperative.

Here is a screenshot of all of these layers together in NYC. I find visualizing it on the map helps illustrate the differences. 

------------------------------
Briana Brown
Data Product Management & Marketing
New York, NY
------------------------------