A Visual Guide To New York City's Massive Data Trove
Colin Lecher
at 02:00 AM Aug 28 2013
NYC Open Data
Chris Whong
Tech // 

The NYC Open Data initiative has dumped a ton of New York public records - school test scores, court districts, even laundromat maps - on one website. But the site is not exactly what you'd call "explorable." A "Showing 10 of 2118" pages, with a next button nearby, looms large on the bottom of the site.

Enter designer Chris Whong, who created a parallel site that serves as a visual guide to all that open data. Whong's site presents assorted branches that break down the data into categories, all viewable on a single page. So hover around the "Social Services" branch, and you'll see dots representing data for homelessness, high school graduation help centers, and more. Here's a close-up:


Click on one of the dots, and it'll take you to the data source on New York's government site. The symbols on the dots represent how the data is tabulated - whether it's a table, map, or something else.


It's still nearly overwhelming (so many dots!) but at least it makes the absolutely monstrous amount of data viewable at a glance. Which is good, since if you look at the visualization for long enough, you'll occasionally find a gem, like this not surprisingly thin map of parking spots in the city.

Check out the full visualization here.

comments powered by Disqus
Sign up for the Pop Sci newsletter
Australian Popular Science
ON SALE 01 FEBRUARY
PopSci Live