GEOG 258 Project 5: Living in New York City

Author: Angela Sun

The theme of the project is living in New York City. NYC is one of the most attractive cities for young adults in the world. However, navigating life in NYC comes with unique challenges, especially for newcomers. International students, in particular, often know the city only through social media, movies, or brief visits, which may not fully reflect the realities of living there. As an international student planning to apply to several graduate schools in NYC and build a career there, I have created 5 maps highlighting important considerations for young adults—particularly international students—who are looking to study, work, and build a life in NYC. The five topics of maps are safety, housing, dining options, cultural organizations, and access to green spaces, which are common top considerations when international students evaluate their life in a foreign city and may differ from the priorities of US residents.

*This photo was taken by myself.

Safety in NYC

Safety is always the aspect most international students worry about when they decide to go to NYC. I designed the map to show a rough picture of the unsafe parts of NYC with the shooting incident data from 2006 to 2023. This map can provide (international) students which neighborhoods tend to be unsafe with more total shooting incidents and they should be more careful when they are around. For example, students probably want to avoid staying in Brooklyn for long periods of time, especially at night, because the map shows the neighborhoods with most shooting incidents are mostly in Brooklyn.

Housing in NYC

The majority of international students will choose to live in an apartment when they live in a city in the US. Therefore, I created this housing map in NYC, and I hope this map can give a price and location rundown for those wanting or planning to rent in NYC. Students can click a point on the map which represents an available housing unit to see more details such as room type, price per day, minimum nights, and number of reviews. These details can help them decide which neighborhood they are more likely to consider living in.

*This photo was taken by myself.

Eating in NYC

New York City brings together cuisines from all over the world. As international students, we want to eat the food of our hometown in a foreign country, but we also want to try more things from other countries. So I use data from the City of New York containing all kinds of restaurants and their locations in NYC to create a restaurant map. Clicking each point will give the restaurant’s name and address. The map also indicates which neighborhoods have denser and more diverse restaurants.

Arts and Cultures in NYC

NYC is a global center for the arts and cultures, and this is also a reason why it is so attractive to young people. Both large and small arts and culture venues are great places for young people living in NYC to relax and unwind. Thus, I created this map providing the names, addresses, and disciplines of all kinds of art and cultural organizations in different neighborhoods. (International) students can use this map to find the locations and names to explore arts and cultures based on their favorite categories or disciplines such as Theatre, Museum, and Literature.

*This photo was taken by myself.

Gardens in NYC

Outdoor activities are just as important to a happy life as indoor activities. As I have already created a map of arts and cultures, which shows mostly locations for indoor activities, I also created a map suggesting locations for outdoor activities. This garden map contains names and addresses of GreenThumb gardens in NYC. Because this map also shows the geospatial distributions of multiple gardens in different neighborhoods, students can also go to multiple adjacent gardens at once based on this map.