NYC with London-type boroughs and London with NYC-type boroughs

[King of Kensington]

You don't have to get exactly 33 subdivisions for NYC, but what would it be like with boroughs more in line with the size of London boroughs?  Or London with very NYC-sized boroughs?

[Hatman 🍁]

Well, at the risk of not knowing enough to comment, London is divided into five planning divisions:



Also, New York City has 18 "community boards": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_boards_of_New_York_City

[bedstuy]

I don't know the Bronx, Queens or Staten Island very well. 

But, here's Manhattan and Brooklyn.

Manhattan

"Downtown": Manhattan below 23rd Street
"Midtown": 23rd-60th
"Upper Sides": 60th- to 111th on the east side, including Morningside Heights/Columbia on the west side.
"Upper Manhattan": The rest



Brooklyn

"Hipsterlands": Wiliamsburg, Greenpoint, Bushwick.
"Downtown Brooklyn": Park Slope, Prospect Heights, Clinton Hill, Navy Yard, Dumbo, Carroll Gardens, Dobro, etc.
"Bedford Heights": Bed-Stuy & Crown Heights.
"Flatlandbush Gardens": PLG, Flatbush, Flatlands, East Flatbush
"Greenwood": Red Hook, Gowanysm Boro Park, Sunset Park, Kensington, etc.
"East Brooklyn": Brownsville, East New York, Canarsie, Cypress Hills
"Midsheep Beach": Midwood, Sheepshead Bay, Brighton Beach, Mill Basin, etc.
"Coneyhurst Ridge":  Coney Island, Bensonhurst, Bay Ridge, etc.

[afleitch]

In NY with London boroughs the area of the original Dutch settlement would probably by a seperate 'City of London' entity.

[Hatman 🍁]

You're going to need to divide NYC up more than that to get to around 33 boroughs.

[traininthedistance]

Well, at the risk of not knowing enough to comment, London is divided into five planning divisions:



Also, New York City has 18 "community boards": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_boards_of_New_York_City

NYC has a lot more than 18 community boards.

Workin' on a map in DRA, coming soon.

[Simfan34]

Will try my hand at Manhattan.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

The easiest way to get just five boroughs out of London is to revert to (approximate) pre-1965 county boundaries:



LCC stands for the London County Council.

I write approximate because (to give one example) part of Barnet borough (the eponymous suburb no less) was actually in Hertfordshire before 1965. Twickenham was actually in Middlesex and so on.

Of course you would then have to give the outer boroughs (other than Middlesex) new names.

[traininthedistance]

So I would assume that the spirit of this exercise does not require anything close to population equality.  Rather, best to keep neighborhoods simple.  The community board lines are pretty good– and a lot of these boroughs follow them exactly, or at least as exactly as voting districts allow (sometimes you'll see lots of little weird jags here and there, that's why).  But I wasn't afraid to discard them in a couple of places.

Funnily enough, the hardest part of this map to draw– and the one that took probably literally half my time going back and forth– was the Flatbush area, where I live.  Or rather, the fact that Sunset Park doesn't really fit with any of its neighbors is annoying as f**k and it had ripple effects.  









MANHATTAN:

Borough 1: THE CITY OF NEW AMSTERDAM.  Population 62,006.  Afleitch's suggestion of a small "City" on the lower tip of Manhattan is obvious and I had even drawn it before he said anything.  I drew it higher than Wall Street, though; instead going up to Canal and basically covering Manhattan CB1.  Take out Battery Park City and Governor's Island... and yeah, it's a square mile.

Yes it is the smallest, though the gap between it and the other boroughs is much smaller than as in London.

Borough 2: LOWER MANHATTAN. Population 252,265.  Going up to 14th Street; Chinatown, Soho, and the various Villages mostly.  This one's actually min-maj, with 47% white, 18% Hispanic, and 27% Asian.

Borough 3: MIDTOWN. Population 296,045.  I guess this is the Westminster equivalent.  No, wait, actually it's Chelsea.

Borough 4: UPPER EAST SIDE.  Population 220,787.  Obvious.

Borough 5: UPPER WEST SIDE. Population 241,850.  Also obvious.  I guess you could give Morningside Heights to the Harlem district instead, and that's actually what the CB districts do, but...nah. Harlem is overpopulated as it is.

Borough 6: HARLEM. 306,986.  43% black, 41% Hispanic.  Soon to be no longer black-plurality?  That will be a milestone of sorts.

Borough 7: WASHINGTON HEIGHTS. Population 205,934.  70% Hispanic.  Yeah, you've got Inwood and friends, too, but I prefer keeping these names simple.


BRONX:

Borough 8: SOUTH BRONX. Population 382,216.  65% Hispanic, 32% Black.  Our most-populous borough.  Should probably cede a neighborhood to the much smaller 9 to its north, but the Cross-Bronx is such an easy dividing line and I don't actually know what would be the best way to split that.

Borough 9: TREMONT AND HEIGHTS. Population 220,322.   67% Hispanic, 28% Black.  I guess this is still sort of "South Bronx", just not as south.

Borough 10: VAN CORTLAND. Population 217,602.  52% Hispanic, 25% White, 15% Black.  Eh, don't want to go with the directional "Northwest"; you could say "Riverdale and Fordham and Kingsbridge" or something but that's a mouthful... just name it after the park.

Borough 11: WILLIAMSBRIDGE AND PELHAM.  Population 253,562.  54% Black, 28% Hispanic.  Also includes Co-Op City, Wakefield, etc; basically its the Northeast Bronx and maybe that would be a better name if I wasn't keen on directionals here.  This is one area where I basically discarded the Community Boards.

Borough 12: SOUNDVIEW AND THROGGS. Population 311,406.  48% Hispanic, 21% Black, 19% White.  Or "Southeast".

Descriptions of BK, QNS, and SI in the next post.

[traininthedistance]

QUEENS:

Borough 13: ASTORIA CITY.  Population 293,016.  40% White, 30% Hispanic, 21% Asian.  And Sunnyside, and Woodside, and (Long Island) City.

Borough 14: MIDDLE FORESTWOOD.  Population 282,440.  Portmanteau of Middle Village, Forest Hills, and Ridgewood, but of course there's plenty more here: Rego Park, Maspeth, Glendale.

Borough 15: JACKSON HEIGHTS AND CORONA.  Population 344,177. 58% Hispanic, 25% Asian.  Also Elmhurst.

Borough 16: GREATER FLUSHING.  Population 234.553.  51% Asian, 28% White, 17% Hispanic. College Point, Murray Hill, Whitestone, etc.

Borough 17: BAYSIDE GARDENS.  Population 226,351.  46% White, 34% Asian.  Lotsa little neighborhoods here, including stuff like "Utopia" and "Pomonok", and a lot of things with "Gardens" in their name (hence the portmanteau with Bayside, which is pretty big)

Borough 18: SPRINGFIELD VILLAGE.  Population 186,223. 55% Black, pretty even mix of the rest.  Basically the more suburban fringe of Southeast Queens, what can't fit in Jamaica.

Borough 19: JAMAICA.  Population 280,734,  56% Black, 18% Hispanic, 14% Asian. 

Borough 20: OZONE PARK. Popuation 268,250.  32% Hispanic, 23% White, 20% Asian, 13% Black.  Also Howard Beach, Woodhaven, etc.  As melting pot as it gets.

Borough 21: ROCKAWAY.  Population 114,978.  39% Black, 35% White, 21% Asian.  Yes, it's small– smaller than all but New Amsterdam.  But it needs to be its own borough.

BROOKLYN:

Borough 22: WILLIAMSBURG AND BUSHWICK. Population 285,883.  42% Hispanic, 40% White.  Just happens to perfectly line up with the old colonial Town of Bushwick... hm, maybe I should drop Bushwick from the name.

Borough 23: BROWNSVILLE.  Population 246,098.  57% Black, 33% Hispanic.  Yeah, East New York is a bigger part of this, but it's a misnomer.

Borough 24: BEDFORD-STUYVESANT.  Population 164,805.  66% Black, 19% Hispanic.  I waffled as to whether put Clinton Hill/Fort Greene here, or just give Bed-Stuy its own borough.  In the end got its own out of deference to CB boundaries.  Good to have a couple large iconic neighborhoods stand on their own (c.f. the UES and Rockaways).

Borough 25: CROWN HEIGHTS. Population 227,877.  69% Black.  Also Prospect Heights, Propsect-Lefferts Gardens.

Borough 26: BREUKELEN.  Population 203,298.  Brownstones and more brownstones. 

Borough 27: FLATLANDS.  Population 318,743.  69% Black.  Also Canarsie, Mill Basin, East Flatbush, etc.  Went with the name that was a colonial town (well, Flatbush is well, but Flatbush proper is also elsewhere.)

Borough 28: FLATBUSH AND GREENWOOD.  Population 299,538.  All groups between 20 and 30 percent!  ...Ugg.  I struggled with this, my district.  The problem is that CB lines kind of suck here (my CB, 14, is strongly divided between the Flatbush part north of the tracks between H and I, and strongly Orthodox Midwood south of it), and also that the Sunset Park-Greenwood-Windsor Terrace CB can't really justify being its own borough, but just lumping it in with Borough Park doesn't make sense, and Kensington could kind of go either way.  I thought about putting Windsor Terrace with Breukelen, but those CB lines *are* nice enough to keep, and then Sunset Park gets even more isolated.  Basically you have room for two boroughs here, and no way to draw them that doesn't come with its own problem.

Eh, in the end I basically made an eruv and gave the Orthodox neighborhoods their own borough.  So here I am, living in the leftovers borough.  I suppose the other way to do it would be Flatbush/Midwood in one, and Sunset Park with Borough Park (and in that case, Windsor Terrace would get kicked north).  Eh, maybe that's prettier, whatever. 

Borough 29: BOROUGH PARK AND MIDWOOD.  Population 198,793.  The Orthodox district.  And...our first Republican one!  28% Obama, lol.

Borough 30: GRAVESEND.  Population 304,088.  Also Sheepshead Bay, Coney Island, etc.  Preferred the name that was, again, the colonial town.  McCain won this by eighteen votes.

Borough 31: NEW UTRECHT.  Population 255, 569. Also Bay Ridge, Bensonhurst; as with the last one I took the name that was a colonial town.  At 53.5% Obama this is what passes for a competitive borough.

STATEN ISLAND
 
Borough 32: NORTH SHORE.  Population 177,467.  40% White, 29% Hispanic, 22% Black.  Small, but too obvious to worry about that.

Borough 33: SOUTH SHORE.  Population 292,253. 38% Obama.  And that's it!

[King of Kensington]

Impressive! 

[Hatman 🍁]

Well, at the risk of not knowing enough to comment, London is divided into five planning divisions:



Also, New York City has 18 "community boards": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_boards_of_New_York_City

NYC has a lot more than 18 community boards.

Workin' on a map in DRA, coming soon.

Oops, you're right. Let's not go with them then, there's too many.

[King of Kensington]

I'm just going to go with the lame names of Central, NW, NE, SW and SE.  Population (rounded), land area (sq. miles) and population density.

Central  3,019,000  116.2  25,981
Northwest  2,404,000  200.5  11,990
Northeast  1,308,000  108.0  12,111
Southwest  1,130,000  101.1  11,143
Southeast  555,000  81.4  6,818

Will try to calculate for ethnic groups, but may take a while as I'm not familiar with the ONS website.

[King of Kensington]

Here's average taxpayer income:

Central  £50,830
Southwest  £39,905
Southeast  £33,125
Northwest  £32,451
Northeast  £26,599

London  £39,100

http://data.london.gov.uk/dataset/average-income-tax-payers-borough/resource/392e86d4-f1d3-4f06-a6a5-7fcd0fd65948

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Will try to calculate for ethnic groups, but may take a while as I'm not familiar with the ONS website.

Neighbourhood Statistics is your friend and 'Custom' is the best thing to click on...

[patrick1]

Cool work,  a couple of quick points.  Sunset Park and Bay Ridge were normally grouped together. Demographics for Rockaway is wrong for Asians.

[King of Kensington]

Ethnicity

London (Central):  60% White, 11.1% Asian, 16.4% Black
Middlesex (NW):  53.3% White, 23.9% Asian, 12% Black
Essex (NE):  52.1% White, 26.3% Asian, 14.1% Black
Surrey (SW):  69.3% White, 13.1% Asian, 10% Black
Kent (SE):  83.3% White, 4.8% Asian, 7.1% Black

Highest qualification (level 4 and above):

London (Central):  45.5%
Surrey (SW):  38.3%
Middlesex (NW):  35%
Kent (SE):  28.3%
Essex (NE):  24%

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Asian, this being Britain, overwhelmingly indicating families from the subcontinent.

You might also want to do with same thing with social housing.

[King of Kensington]

I actually excluded Chinese from the Asian count.  I added up Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi and "other Asian." I assume "other Asian" is mostly South Asians (those born in the UK who say "Asian British", Sri Lankans, some people of South Asian origin born in Africa etc.)

I'll try to get social housing figures. 

It's interesting that in London it's still commonly asserted that poverty is mostly an "inner city" problem and outer London is leafy, suburban and prosperous.   

http://npi.org.uk/blog/income-and-poverty/londons-poverty-shifting-suburbs/

[traininthedistance]

Cool work,  a couple of quick points.  Sunset Park and Bay Ridge were normally grouped together. Demographics for Rockaway is wrong for Asians.

That would make things a lot nicer, actually.  Give Sunset Park to the Bay Ridge borough, South Slope/Windsor Terrace to the Brownstone Brooklyn borough, and have Flatbush take more of East Flatbush.

The Sunset Park/Bay Ridge/Bensonhurst borough becomes pretty huge, but that's okay.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I'll try to get social housing figures.

After you've picked your areas on the site, go: Census > 2011 Key Statistics (actually you can use Quick Statistics as you're after raw numbers but whatever) > Tenure > Social Rented: Rented from Council + Social Rented: Other.

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Well the worst concentrations of poverty still are mostly in the inner city (however defined) and many of the suburbs in the GLA area are very well-to-do indeed, but, yes... reality is more complex than stereotype. Of course it can sometimes work the other way as well: there are still a lot of poor people in what is now invariably referred to as 'trendy Shoreditch'.

[King of Kensington]

Are you classifying Newham and Haringey as inner or outer London?   They weren't part of the County of London in 1965 but they're often referred to as "inner London."

[Filuwaúrdjan]

In that context, yes. Newham is interesting: West Ham and East Ham grew up as separate industrial towns rather than an eastern extension of Poplar. It's like St Denis or somewhere.

[King of Kensington]

The multicultural, interwar NW suburbs of London strike me as similar to Queens. 

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Once Ken Livingstone proposed a redrawing of London's boroughs to four or five megaboroughs. While I sympathise - the current boroughs often are both too small and too large - his map was completely fruit loops. From what I remember he literAlly cut the city into five vertical strips. So it ended up with absurdities like Winchmore Hill and Westminster in the same subsection.