Look, Sully - this street is in Dohchestah, not Roxbury!
April 16, 2017 9:42 PM   Subscribe

Crowdsourcing Boston neighborhood boundaries.
posted by Chrysostom (25 comments total) 11 users marked this as a favorite
 
Look, ya donkey, weah in Bry'n, not Allston.
posted by armoir from antproof case at 10:05 PM on April 16, 2017 [1 favorite]


Ok, having lived in the MIT/Cambridgeport/Central Sq areas - the fact that Central isn't official seems bizarre. And yet, neighborhood boundaries are so amazingly important particularly in a city area like Boston that's been so ethnically/racially segregated - "don't go to Roxbury - that's where the minorities live", "man, you're Irish, don't go to the North End!" '

Neighborhoods are just a weird endless and mostly meaningless battle except when somebody takes the turf argument to heart.

Of course, when they did the LA Times version of this a few years ago, man the blood in the water. You could truly see the changing tides of demographics and privilege around the lines drawn for "Eastside" more easily than anything else. The richer, the whiter, the more college educated, the further west you wanted to push the line. I've known people, respected people for their knowledge of industry, etc., who insist that "Eastside" starts somewhere just east of the 405 or at best the 101. Naturally there are people in Hollywood, etc who insist "man, I'm on the Eastside of LA"...

(For the record, no.. anything west of the LA River, including Los Feliz and Silver lake aren't Eastside.. it's the river, dangnabit... [quickly to be followed by folks telling me fervently why I'm wrong, cause, naturally!])
posted by drewbage1847 at 10:09 PM on April 16, 2017 [2 favorites]


I wonder how they defined the neighborhoods to be delineated. For instance, Dorchester is made of sub-neighborhoods (like Savin Hill and Fields Corner) but appears as one mass here, whereas they show small neighborhood designations in Somerville and Cambridge that I've never heard of.
posted by lunasol at 2:45 AM on April 17, 2017


lunasol in the current version of the project (which is the version National​ Geographic is reporting on) there isn't any predesignation at all. It also doesn't appear that any human selection is involved in reaching the map show. The project site describes the process​ as such:
The way this map works is:
1) Lay a somewhat-fine grid over the area. These hexagonal cells are something like 75 meters across.
2) For each cell, find the most commonly named neighborhood intersecting it.
3) Measure consensus on that cell as the number of submissions for that neighborhood intersecting the cell, divided by the total number of submissions for that neighborhood. Thus we can say something like, “75% of people who drew the South End agree that this location is part of the South End.”
4) Ignore any neighborhoods with fewer than 5 submissions. This weeds out all the joke/rude submissions, but also is just an arbitrary minimum for measurable consensus.
So it appears that the reason the subdivisions you describe are being erased on the map is that they're never the most commonly selected neighbourhood designation in respect of any cell. It seems that, in the Dorchester area, people have, for whatever reason, tended to pick the high-level neighbourhood as the designator, but in other areas have preferred to subdivide.

There is no way for respondents to designate a hierarchy of neighbourhoods in the current version, but that seems like it could be a good future step.
posted by howfar at 4:38 AM on April 17, 2017 [3 favorites]


Blood will run if they try this for NYC. Blood.Will.Run
posted by JPD at 5:31 AM on April 17, 2017


The parts I find really fascinating is when one side of an "official border" is very, very certain about who they are, but the other side is completely oblivious. It's almost like the indecision creates the border itself. Look between Roxbury and South End. Apparently everyone, right up to the border, says "yes, we live in South End", But as soon as you cross the border there is absolutely no consensus about where you're at.

And on preview: I learned in this thread that Roxbury is a minority neighborhood? That makes this really troubling, then, but it also makes sense now.
posted by FirstMateKate at 6:20 AM on April 17, 2017 [2 favorites]


This confirms that the little patch of Somerville where I lived in the '90s, halfway between Porter and Inman, is Not In Any Neighborhood. People were like "where do you live?" and I was like "right by the Star Market, but not the Porter Square Star Market, that other Star Market farther down beacon," which I guess is too long to fit on that map.
posted by escabeche at 6:35 AM on April 17, 2017 [6 favorites]


escabeche: You and I were apparently neighbors (I lived on Park St in the 90s). I had the same problem. "A couple blocks from Dali" seemed to be a good reference point for anyone food-inclined.
posted by foldedfish at 6:59 AM on April 17, 2017


When I returned to New Orleans post-Katrina there was more discussion of neighborhoods than I'd ever heard before (naturally, with people saying "such-and-such neighborhood was practically [untouched/destroyed] by the storm").

I went looking and found the Greater New Orleans Community Data Center (GNOCDC)'s definition of neighborhood boundaries, but it was just a crappy PNG which was frustrating to use.

I spent the better part of a night crudely applying that data to Google Maps by hand. Then I made a mistake: sharing that projecting on social media. I have never heard more complaints from residents about what streets were really the borders for neighborhoods, neighborhoods missing entirely (nickname versus the GNOCDC's name), neighborhoods being made up ("What's this 'East Riverside' bullshit?"), and just general disdain for the GNOCDC in general ("Who are they to name our neighborhoods?").

Point is: I would love to see this crowdsourced neighborhood project applied to New Orleans just to find out how radically it differs from the "official" names.
posted by komara at 7:20 AM on April 17, 2017 [1 favorite]


Yes one dimension that needs to be shown is not just aggregate of all respondents, but differences in neighbourhood assignment based on where those respondents are from. (And I also wonder how representative of the whole city that population of respondents is....)
posted by thefool at 7:30 AM on April 17, 2017


I wonder if the official absence of Central Square is because it used to be nearly as down-at-heel as Cambridgeport generally and has failed to detach itself even as rents soared. But it is odd to me. I think most people think of Cambridge as divided up by T stop.

its named squares (most of which are just glorified intersections)

FIGHT ME
posted by praemunire at 7:54 AM on April 17, 2017


Here's a direct link to the hi-res map from the blog post.

Apparently I lived in "Area IV", a name I never once heard. It's the awkward bit of Cambridge you live in if you go to MIT but can't afford to live closer to a T stop, everything is just a little too far a walk away. Anyway it has a Wikipedia article that also calls it "The Port", a name that only makes sense if you remember what Cambridge looked like before 300 years of landfill. It does show up if you zoom Google Maps just the wrong level. Apparently these area names date to the 1950 census.
posted by Nelson at 8:07 AM on April 17, 2017 [1 favorite]


I lived in Cambridge for like five years and I never heard of Duck Village, what the hell
posted by Countess Elena at 9:23 AM on April 17, 2017


The ducks forgive you
posted by FirstMateKate at 9:25 AM on April 17, 2017


Hell, I lived in Duck Village and the only reason I know it was called that is I got lost one time and saw it on a historical marker on a back street I never found again.
posted by dorque at 9:30 AM on April 17, 2017 [3 favorites]


The parts I find really fascinating is when one side of an "official border" is very, very certain about who they are, but the other side is completely oblivious. It's almost like the indecision creates the border itself. Look between Roxbury and South End. Apparently everyone, right up to the border, says "yes, we live in South End", But as soon as you cross the border there is absolutely no consensus about where you're at.

In that case (and the Back Bay) it looks like people have decided that the western border is Mass. Ave.

FIGHT ME

find me an actual square-shaped share in Cambridge, and we'll talk.

I lived in Cambridge for like five years and I never heard of Duck Village, what the hell

wouldn't the actual Duck Village be Boston Common, where the statues of the ducklings are?
posted by madcaptenor at 9:30 AM on April 17, 2017 [1 favorite]


[i]I lived in Cambridge for like five years and I never heard of Duck Village, what the hell[/i]

Yeah, I was gonna say this too. Part of me thinks maybe MIT pranked the survey...
posted by escabeche at 9:50 AM on April 17, 2017


But the Public Garden is already known as Ether Park.
posted by Nelson at 10:26 AM on April 17, 2017


find me an actual square-shaped share in Cambridge, and we'll talk.

Harvard Yard is, in fact, a square. Or at least a quadrangle. But squares themselves are not great urban design. Intersections, glorified or not, are much better. That's why the "squares" are where all the action is.
posted by praemunire at 10:29 AM on April 17, 2017


Harvard Yard is, in fact, a square. Or at least a quadrangle. But squares themselves are not great urban design. Intersections, glorified or not, are much better. That's why the "squares" are where all the action is.

I'm not saying that squares are good urban design. I'm saying that it's silly to call Central Square a "square" when you can't point to an actual square-shaped thing there.
posted by madcaptenor at 10:37 AM on April 17, 2017


Look within; the square is you.
posted by Nelson at 11:50 AM on April 17, 2017


its named squares (most of which are just glorified intersections)

FIGHT ME


They're not wrong, I'd say about 85% of all traffic intersections in Cambridge and Somerville have a sign designating them "1st Lieutenant Johnny Smith Square" or something similar. In fact, I'd say more intersections have those signs than actual street signs. They're totally ridiculous, of course, and no one actually says they're from Corporal O'Donnell Square, but they do exist.
posted by backseatpilot at 11:59 AM on April 17, 2017 [1 favorite]


There are a large number of (gilded lawn ornament) duck sculptures in Duck Village, too.
posted by nonane at 12:46 PM on April 18, 2017


Previously, Chicago

Previously-er, for NYC (no blood spillage, that I'm aware of)
posted by miguelcervantes at 1:02 PM on April 18, 2017


Also, from the previouslies, maps for Akron and Cleveland, OH and Portland, OR; Seattle, WA; Vancouver, BC.
posted by miguelcervantes at 1:09 PM on April 18, 2017


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