Later this week, I will begin my attempt in collecting interview data from residents of the South Bronx. Referring back to my meeting last week with Carlos Martinez at NYC Parks GreenThumb, he recommended that I look through data posted on NYC 311 and NYC Open Data in an attempt to establish whether or not residents of the South Bronx are using this particular civic app in order to handle community concerns.
Via NYC 311 online service request map : http://www1.nyc.gov/apps/311srmap/
I discovered that residents of Community District 1 and 2 make nearly the lowest amount of request submissions via 311 of any community districts within the five boroughs.
In interviewing residents of this community, I am eager to find out why this is.
In addition to NYC 311 data, out of curiosity, I also visited NYC Open Data and happened upon a map of the locations of open WiFi hotspots provided by the city.
In comparing these two maps, (and making certain demographic assumptions) I observed what appears to be an interesting relationship between the amount of open NYC WiFi hotspots and online service requests submitted to NYC 311. I am definitely interested in exploring this more closely.
Hoping that the upcoming linkNYC project, in some way, addresses the fact that there seems to be a lack of free Wifi access in the South Bronx.
