Environmental Stressors and Social Complaints in NYC

Emma Valentina Tupone

Project Overview

  • Climate change increases urban environmental stress

  • Flooding can disrupt infrastructure and communities

  • Social stress may appear in complaint behavior

Research Question

  • Do flooding complaints relate to noise complaints across NYC boroughs?

Data Preview

# A tibble: 3 × 39
  `Unique Key` `Created Date`      `Closed Date` Agency `Agency Name`           
  <chr>        <dttm>              <dttm>        <chr>  <chr>                   
1 67148990     2025-12-12 22:05:00 NA            DEP    Department of Environme…
2 67150637     2025-12-12 18:14:00 NA            DEP    Department of Environme…
3 67150638     2025-12-12 14:50:00 NA            DEP    Department of Environme…
# ℹ 34 more variables: `Complaint Type` <chr>, Descriptor <chr>,
#   `Location Type` <lgl>, `Incident Zip` <chr>, `Incident Address` <chr>,
#   `Street Name` <chr>, `Cross Street 1` <chr>, `Cross Street 2` <chr>,
#   `Intersection Street 1` <chr>, `Intersection Street 2` <chr>,
#   `Address Type` <chr>, City <chr>, Landmark <lgl>, `Facility Type` <lgl>,
#   Status <chr>, `Due Date` <lgl>, `Resolution Description` <chr>,
#   `Resolution Action Updated Date` <dttm>, `Community Board` <chr>, …
# A tibble: 3 × 7
  unique_key created_date    complaint_type borough city  x_coordinate_state_p…¹
  <chr>      <chr>           <chr>          <chr>   <chr> <chr>                 
1 59490200   2023-11-19T09:… Noise          BRONX   BRONX 1017912               
2 59491155   2023-11-19T23:… Noise          BRONX   BRONX 1008199               
3 59481130   2023-11-18T08:… Noise          QUEENS  FLUS… 1041072               
# ℹ abbreviated name: ¹​x_coordinate_state_plane
# ℹ 1 more variable: y_coordinate_state_plane <chr>

Exploratory Summary

  • Flood complaints vary across boroughs and years

  • Noise complaints show even larger variation

  • Some boroughs report very high complaint activity

Flooding Complaints by Borough

  • Visual comparison of flooding complaints

  • Shows variation across boroughs

  • Highlights environmental vulnerability differences

Correlation

[1] 0.01813509

  • Measures strength of relationship

  • Positive value = increase together

  • Value near zero = weak relationship

Correlation Plot

  • Each point = borough-year observation

  • Line shows overall trend

  • Relationship appears weak

Regression Model

  • Tests predictive relationship

  • Coefficient ≈ 0.42

  • p-value = 0.71

  • Not statistically significant

Key Takeaways

  • Flood complaints vary across NYC boroughs

  • Noise complaints vary widely

  • Relationship between the two was weak

  • Environmental stress likely influenced by multiple factors

  • NYC Open Data enables civic research