Wired Magazine‘s article “What a Hundred Million Calls to 311 Reveal About New York” describes how that city’s 311 service has actually solved some larger mysteries, like the source of an odd odor in part of NYC. Sure, their center has over one hundred employees, but New York is also many, many times more populated than Hartford. One would expect that sifting through Hartford’s available data would be simple.

In the next few days, we’ll be looking at what active 311 cases tell us about Hartford. In other words, what is it that Hartfordites worry about?

Today, we will look at the issues in the North Meadows, North East, Clay Arsenal, Upper Albany, Blue Hills, West End, and Parkville neighborhoods. Parkville’s largest concern, by and large, is graffiti. Almost every complaint entered for that neighborhood fits this category. Blue Hills has a major tree problem. Clay Arsenal, North East, and Upper Albany have a large number of housing complaints, both of the urgent and non-urgent varieties.

Below is a chart of data representing active (unresolved) 311 cases in the aforementioned neighborhoods.

Data may not be scientific, as I am not a mathmologist. You are welcome to inspect the data yourself.

Part Two
Part Three