Unprecedented events of 2020

By Elaine Hsieh & Jo Hee Lee
Fall 2020 Data Visualization taught by Jia Zhang

2020 saw several significant events impacting the United States of America and the rest of the world.

In this study, we explore how the year has unfolded in relation to the number of 311-noise complaints made to the New York City Police department.

Two major events of interest in the study include the Covid-19 outbreak and the 'Black Lives Matter' protests that gained traction after the killing of George Floyd

Noise Complaints in the last 4 years

New York City has faced it's burden of noisy streets and honking cars. The unusual year of 2020 continues its trend of noise with a record-high rate of 311 complaints. Shown below are total noise complaints from the 2017 to 2020 with obvious spikes and dips throughout.

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Seasonal fluctuations are observable within a year and the manner of fluctuation remain constant across the years. Summer usually has the highest number of complaints for any season. Winter records the lowest. 2020 sees the highest peak recorded across the past 4 years, Sunday June 21st, and remains much higher than the average since that date for the rest of the 2020 year.

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Noise in 2020 by Type

Hover over the lines for specific info and toggle the legend!

Some Limitations

Multiple calls are not necessarily linked to the same noise source. Number of calls do not correlate to the actual noise intensity. The inability to directly identify type of street noise - eg. protest, street-peformers etc were all part of the limitations in accuracy for this study.

Moving Forward

Although we are unsure of the exact reasons for the spike and dips in noise complaints, it is interesting to see the uniqueness of 2020 and where NYC sounds will be heard in the future.