Map of the Month: Displacement Alert Map 2.0

Founded in 1974  the Association for Neighborhood and Housing Development is a coalition of community groups that aims to ensure affordable and equitable housing and neighborhoods for all New Yorkers. Created using CARTO.js and pulling in open data from multiple sources  they hope the latest version of their Displacement Alert Map (DAP Map) will equip organizers  decision makers  and others with a tool to visualize  understand  and hopefully take action to fight housing displacement.

The Problem of Displacement

In their launch blog for DAP Map  ANHD recognizes displacement as a widespread crisis in New York City that inordinately impacts the city's low-income residents and communities of color. And while this crisis can seem clear and obvious to residents who live in any of New York's rapidly gentrifying neighborhoods  the nature of it is truly complex.

ANHD notes that while the problem of displacement is widespread across all of New York City  the crisis looks very different from neighborhood to neighborhood. While some neighborhoods may lack rent-stabilized housing  others may face greater risk of development  and still others may see heightened levels of tenant harassment.

For organizers working locally  being able to speak to specific issues and advocate for impactful change at the neighborhood level requires a deeper understanding.

New York City's Open Data

Fortunately  much of the relevant data exists and is accessible via NYC Open Data  the city's central open data hub. For DAP Map  ANHD knew that they needed to pull in multiple data layers to allow users to see the key indicators of displacement. For this  DAP Map is pulling in data for four "Risk Layers":

• Deregulation Risk - The change in the percentage of rent stabilized units between 2007 and 2016. Derived from property tax bills from the NYC Department of Finance.
• New Sale Risk - The most recent sale between 1/1/2007 and 7/31/2018  this layer can illuminate if a sale price might indicate a speculative investment strategy  and is derived from the Department of Finance's rolling and annualized sales data.
• Construction Risk - Alteration  new building  and demolition permits issued by the NYC Department of Buildings between 1/1/2007 and 7/31/2018.
• Eviction Risk - The number of evictions executed by marshals in 2017  derived from open data from the NYC Department of Investigation.

For more info on these layers  data sourcing  and cleaning methodology check out ANHD's tutorial for DAP Map 2.0.

The DAP Map project wouldn't have been possible without NYC Open Data  and the open data advocates like BetaNYC fighting for greater transparency. But not all of the relevant data is accessible. Hopefully with time  greater transparency will bring access to even more datasets that will power the fight against displacement and unfair housing policy.  

The Map

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       Carto's bread and butter–enabling spatial layers to be pulled from a data source  styled to show patterns  and made interactive to allow a user to dive into the data on their own–is just what we needed for this project.
       - Lucy Block  Research & Policy Associate  Association for Neighborhood and Housing Development    

The Displacement Alert Map was built using CARTO.js  CARTO's Javascript library that interacts directly with CARTO's APIs. using CARTO.js developers can bring in their location data and build their own custom Location Intelligence solutions to drive intuitive geospatial analysis for their organization.

 Learn more about CARTO.js and other tools for developers to built their own Location Intelligence solutions! Check out the recorded webinar!

In addition to displaying the four aforementioned layers of displacement risk  the Displacement Alert Map offers a number of other key features to help users explore the risk in their neighborhoods and city wide. DAP Map offers layers that define City Council Districts  Community Boards  and Zip Codes to make local advocacy even easier. They also have a quick search that allows users to zero in on a specific address.

By clicking on a specific building  users are able to pull up a layer-specific detailed view of that building (Stabilized unit quantities  recent sale price  evictions  and more.) as well as access links to outside resources that can provide greater context around ownership  financials  and history of that property.

Solving Complex Problems with Location Intelligence

The Association for Neighborhood and Housing Development's latest version of the Displacement Alert Map is a powerful tool for community members  local advocates  and city that needs to actively address the continued displacement of its low-income residents and communities of color.

Using Location Intelligence tools and drawing on the growing availability of open data  DAP Map serves as a perfect example of how organizations can solve complex problems with modern  technical solutions.