Views from the Northwest Bronx

The NWBCCC Reinvestment Project and UNHP are featured in this essay by Gregory Jost, a former UNHP staff member, and valued colleague. The essay was originally published by Urban Ominibus and developed out of Greg's research for a book on redlining in the Bronx. It demonstrates how data was an important organizing tool in the early days of the Community Reinvestment Act and remains important today as displacement and speculation threaten the Bronx and other low-income neighborhoods in NYC.

Alternative Financial Services (AFS) – check cashing, rent-to-own stores, pop-up tax prep sites and pawn shops - are about equal in number to banks branches in the Bronx. The high interest rates and excessive fees, associated with these services, make it challenging to stay out of debt, let alone build wealth.

The foreclosure crisis for homeowners that precipitated the 2008 recession continues to be a daily source of stress, confusion, and financial hardship for hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers and Bronx homeowners are no exception.

Views from the Northwest Bronx is a blog series aimed at framing an inclusive and informed discussion on issues affecting the affordability and viability of Northwest Bronx neighborhoods today. While the topics addressed in the series are by no means exhaustive, the data presented and analysis offered sheds light on many of the key issues.

The Bronx is under construction: cranes, excavators, scaffolding, and green demolition fences are everywhere. For long-time community staffers and residents in the northwest Bronx, the building and demolition we see as we walk to work, lunch, or the train is unprecedented.

The UNHP Building Indicator Project (BIP) is a database that leverages public data to gauge distress; it currently captures demographic data, housing and building code violations, and several city liens from municipal agencies for over 62,000 properties with five units or more in all five boroughs; amounting to a staggering 6.2 million data points. Still, more information is needed to ensure distressed buildings are identified and improved.

​“Why here? Why not in your neighborhood?” Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan or the Bronx, the anger over the opening of homeless shelters in communities is in part related to the lack of transparency from the City, questions about the equitable placement of homeless shelters, and the role of communities in the placement of shelters.

Data is currency; it has an economic worth that can be purchased, traded and leveraged. Individuals and entities have always leveraged information to create opportunity. OpenData seeks to equalize the balance of power by increasing accessibility to municipal data.

The ubiquitous nature of data is undeniable—it is everywhere. We all use data to inform our decision-making, assigning subjective valuations and interpreting what it tells us. The NYC Open Data Initiative offers data from all NYC agencies on a single web-based platform. UNHP's Community Resource Guide can help you sort through the data.

Data and organizing are inextricably linked. What better way to show the collective impact of certain policies than to use data.