Source Data

The following report analyzes tax parcel data from Syracuse, New York (USA).

View the “Data Dictionary” here: Syracuse City Tax Parcel Data



Importing the Data

The following code imports the Syracuse, NY tax parcel data using a URL.



Previewing the Data

There are several exploratory functions to better understand our new dataset.

We can inspect the first 5 rows of these data using function head().



Listing All Variables

Functions names() or colnames() will print all variable names in a dataset.


##  [1] "tax_id"       "neighborhood" "stnum"        "stname"       "zip"         
##  [6] "owner"        "frontfeet"    "depth"        "sqft"         "acres"       
## [11] "yearbuilt"    "age"          "age_range"    "land_use"     "units"       
## [16] "residential"  "rental"       "vacantbuil"   "assessedla"   "assessedva"  
## [21] "tax.exempt"   "countytxbl"   "schooltxbl"   "citytaxabl"   "star"        
## [26] "amtdelinqu"   "taxyrsdeli"   "totint"       "overduewater"


Previewing Specific Variables

We can also inspect the values of a variable by extracting it with $.

The extracted variable is called a “vector”.


##  [1] "CLARMIN BUILDERS ONON COR" "JOHNSTON LEE R"           
##  [3] "CHRISTO CRAIG S"           "HAWKINS FARMS INC"        
##  [5] "PETERS LYNNETTE"           "MITCHELL LOTAN G"         
##  [7] "WHALEN GIOVANNA A"         "BERGH GARY D"             
##  [9] "CITY OF SYRACUSE TD"       "DOUGHERTY ROBERT K JR"


Listing Unique Values

Function unique() helps us determine what values exist in a variable.


##  [1] "Vacant Land"        "Single Family"      "Commercial"        
##  [4] "Parking"            "Two Family"         "Three Family"      
##  [7] "Apartment"          "Schools"            "Parks"             
## [10] "Multiple Residence" "Cemetery"           "Religious"         
## [13] "Recreation"         "Community Services" "Utilities"         
## [16] "Industrial"


Examining Data Structure

Function str() provides an overview of total rows and columns (dimensions), variable classes, and a preview of values.


## 'data.frame':    41502 obs. of  29 variables:
##  $ tax_id      : int  1393130501 1393130500 1437100600 1425100900 1425101000 ...
##  $ neighborhood: chr  "South Valley" "South Valley" ...
##  $ stnum       : chr  "2655" "2635" ...
##  $ stname      : chr  "VALLEY DR" "VALLEY DR" ...
##  $ zip         : chr  "13215" "13120" ...
##  $ owner       : chr  "CLARMIN BUILDERS ONON COR" "JOHNSTON LEE R" ...
##  $ frontfeet   : num  67.2 104.8 ...
##  $ depth       : num  50 46.5 ...
##  $ sqft        : num  2149 6370 ...
##  $ acres       : num  0.0493 0.1462 ...
##  $ yearbuilt   : int  NA 1925 1957 1958 1965 ...
##  $ age         : int  NA 90 58 57 50 ...
##  $ age_range   : chr  NA "81-90" ...
##  $ land_use    : chr  "Vacant Land" "Single Family" ...
##  $ units       : int  0 0 0 0 0 ...
##  $ residential : logi  FALSE TRUE TRUE ...
##  $ rental      : logi  FALSE FALSE FALSE ...
##  $ vacantbuil  : logi  FALSE FALSE FALSE ...
##  $ assessedla  : int  475 10800 20200 18000 18000 ...
##  $ assessedva  : int  500 69300 88300 70500 74000 ...
##  $ tax.exempt  : logi  TRUE FALSE FALSE ...
##  $ countytxbl  : int  500 69300 88300 70500 74000 ...
##  $ schooltxbl  : int  500 69300 88300 70500 74000 ...
##  $ citytaxabl  : int  500 69300 88300 70500 74000 ...
##  $ star        : logi  NA TRUE TRUE ...
##  $ amtdelinqu  : num  0 0 0 0 0 ...
##  $ taxyrsdeli  : int  0 0 0 0 0 ...
##  $ totint      : num  0 0 0 0 0 ...
##  $ overduewater: num  0 178 ...



Questions & Solutions

Instructions: Provide the code for each solution in the following “chunks”.

Remember to modify the text to show your answer in human-readable terms.


Question 1: Total Parcels

Question: How many tax parcels are in Syracuse, NY?

Answer: There are 41469 tax parcels in Syracuse, NY.


## [1] "integer"
## [1] 41502    29
## [1] 41469


Question 2: Total Acres

Question: How many acres of land are in Syracuse, NY?

Answer: There are 12510.49 acres of land in Syracuse, NY.


## [1] 12510.49


Question 3: Vacant Buildings

Question: How many vacant buildings are there in Syracuse, NY?

Answer: There are 1888 vacant buildings in Syracuse, NY.


## [1] 1888

Question 4: Tax-Exempt Parcels

Question: What proportion of parcels are tax-exempt?

Answer: 10.7% of parcels are tax-exempt.


## [1] 10.70069
## [1] 0.1070069


Question 5: Neighborhoods & Parcels

Question: Which neighborhood contains the most tax parcels?

Answer: Eastwood contains the most tax parcels.


## 
##                Brighton          Court-Woodlawn                Downtown 
##                    2302                    2402                     389 
##                Eastwood                 Elmwood            Far Westside 
##                    4889                    1444                    1027 
##         Franklin Square            Hawley-Green               Lakefront 
##                      89                     367                     312 
##            Lincoln Hill             Meadowbrook           Near Eastside 
##                    1123                    1878                     441 
##           Near Westside            North Valley               Northside 
##                    1772                    1531                    3261 
##          Outer Comstock               Park Ave.           Prospect Hill 
##                     990                     942                     365 
##            Salt Springs                Sedgwick              Skunk City 
##                    1414                    1138                     713 
##            South Campus            South Valley               Southside 
##                      36                    1925                    1370 
##               Southwest              Strathmore               Tipp Hill 
##                    1150                    1822                    1468 
##         University Hill University Neighborhood       Washington Square 
##                     505                    1259                    1180 
##                Westcott               Winkworth 
##                    1540                     452


Question 6: Neighborhoods & Vacant Lots

Question: Which neighborhood contains the most vacant lots?

Answer: Northside contains the most vacant lots.


##                          
##                           FALSE TRUE
##   Brighton                 2048  243
##   Court-Woodlawn           2320   56
##   Downtown                  357   15
##   Eastwood                 4716   93
##   Elmwood                  1305  122
##   Far Westside              951   43
##   Franklin Square            71    5
##   Hawley-Green              343   16
##   Lakefront                 272    5
##   Lincoln Hill             1049   56
##   Meadowbrook              1822   15
##   Near Eastside             409   24
##   Near Westside            1559  176
##   North Valley             1441   75
##   Northside                2978  264
##   Outer Comstock            895   25
##   Park Ave.                 847   75
##   Prospect Hill             321   37
##   Salt Springs             1342   44
##   Sedgwick                 1114   16
##   Skunk City                670   35
##   South Campus               32    0
##   South Valley             1836   40
##   Southside                1239  120
##   Southwest                1028   87
##   Strathmore               1769   38
##   Tipp Hill                1402   44
##   University Hill           478    6
##   University Neighborhood  1242   11
##   Washington Square        1102   68
##   Westcott                 1474   24
##   Winkworth                 421   10