New York's Crowdsourced Neighborhoods

Back in August DNAinfo asked New Yorker's to draw their neighborhoods on an interactive map. By allowing the crowd to decide on the boundaries of their local neighborhoods DNAinfo hoped to settle the old argument over the exact position of New York neighborhoods.

Where Exactly is Your Neighborhood allows you to pick a New York neighborhood and then draw the neighborhood boundary on top of a Leaflet map. Once you have drawn your neighborhood's border on the map you can compare your neighborhood boundary with those submitted by other New Yorkers.

You can now also view the composite maps of New York's crowdsourced neighborhoods. The results of over 12,000 responses are now in, providing crowdsourced boundaries for 250 New York neighborhoods. DNAInfo's New York Map allows you to select any New York neighborhood and view a choropleth map of the crowdsourced results.

The darkest color on the map shows the area of New York which most people thought lie within the selected neighborhood. The lighter colored areas indicate locations that a few dissenters also thought were encompassed by the neighborhood boundary.

I'm not sure that the DNAInfo's crowdsourcing efforts have conclusively settled the argument over New York's neighborhood boundaries. In some neighborhoods there does seem to be a fair amount of agreement over the area's boundaries. Other neighborhoods however seem harder to define. The arguments will continue ...