Typical, or, All the Blocks in Manhattan rejects the notion of a “typical” New York City block.
When overlaid, all blocks appear to form a rectilinear density at the center. Yet, there is no standard shape or size, only a tangle of exceptions. Scrolling down the page individuates each of the blocks, and streams of skinny rectangles are routinely interrupted by irregularity.
Technical
A block shape file from NYCOD was exported from QGIS as a DXF file. In Rhino, individual line segments were joined into closed polygons, medians were culled, and self-intersecting lines were identified and trimmed.
The web map was built using d3.js. While typically used for charts, it also supports geographic functions including rendering GEOJSON objects as SVG elements. While the blocks were initially projected using the mercator projection, they were translated to form a cluster, and then positioned in a vertical line.
Next Steps
- Automatically scroll, up or down, accelerated with mouse movement from the center of the browser.
- Add blocks from all the boroughs of NYC.
- Add labels, on mouse over, indicating borough or neighborhood and area.