Bridge 2: visualizing information about your neighborhood

Assignment:

Write a short text (400 words) that will:

a) intertwine the statistical data, historical sources, and the results of your observations during your walks: do they complement one another? Explain one another? Contradict one another? Are they unrelated?

b) comment on the significance of the data you have chosen—what does it tell us about the neighborhood?

c) comment on potential questions that arose when you were working on the poster (for the studio). What have you found curious/surprising? What would you like to learn more about?

When I was gathering data about Jackson Heights I was shocked at somethings I saw during my research. For example, The data about the different races and the percentages in the neighbor was way off from what I thought. All these articles I have read about Jackson Heights talk all about how diverse Jackson Heights is but it turns out over sixty percent is Hispanic. I just thought that all the percentages in the neighborhood about race/ ethnic background would be more spread out with closer percentages to each other. Also finding out this information and revisiting the neighborhood, I did notice more people walking on the street talking Spanish and seeing apartment ads in the area in Spanish so I can see this in the neighborhood now.

Another shocking find was about how one in every five people in Jackson Heights is below the poverty line. It surprised me because when I went there, I didn’t see too many homeless people on the street compared to where I live in Manhattan. But it does seem to make a little sense because when I went into stores in the neighborhood there are no high-end type stores but there are local businesses that sell things for really cheap.

One thing that didn’t surprise me was the data about the population by age. When I walked around the neighborhood, it seemed more like people my age or older than me by a couple years. Not too many kids around other than the public park in the neighborhood or walking with a parent which there weren’t too many families walking together out when I went too. It does have a club/party/bar scene feel on Roosevelt Avenue at night which makes sense if the area is mostly aged 25 to 44.

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