One of the core objectives of the Cornell ILR Buffalo Co-Lab’s Data for Equitable Economic Development and Sustainability, or Good DEEDS initiative, is to democratize geographic, economic, environmental, and social data. In pursuit of that objective, the Co-Lab regularly creates interactive maps and data portals and publishes quarterly memoranda that (typically) make data-driven cases for policy change.

This page, the Buffalo Common Council District and Neighborhood Information System, furthers the Good DEEDS mission by providing Buffalo residents, researchers, elected officials, and other stakeholders with an interactive dashboard for summarizing key Census Bureau data indicators, over time, at the City Council District and Planning Neighborhood levels of analysis. Because Census data are neither collected nor published for local legislative district boundaries, obtaining information at this level of analysis can be difficult. The resources below attempt to remove some of that difficulty.

Instructions

Use the dropdown menus at the top right of the interface to select a Common Council District. On the Common Council District interface, users can choose a district either by the current (2023) set of boundaries that were just adopted, or the district boundaries as they existed from 2011 to 2022. Users can combine these two filters to create more fine-grained analyses. For example, a user can select the current (2023) boundaries of the Delaware District using the top menu. Then, they can use the bottom (2011-22) menu to show only those portions currently in the Delaware District that were also in the Delaware District prior to 2022. (Alternatively, the user can select parts of the Delaware District that were in different districts for the past decade, to get a sense for the types of spaces that were drawn into the new district last year.)

Selecting a district will automatically zoom to that location on the map. To return to the default (Citywide) view, choose “All” from the dropdown menu(s). If at any time you move the map, zoom in or out (using your scrollbar or the controls in the upper left of the map), or otherwise change the map view and want to return to the default settings, click the Home icon in the upper left of the mapping window to return to the default view.

The population data above the map come from the Amended 2020 and 2010 U.S. Decennial Census datasets published by the NYS Legislative Task Force on Demographic Research and Reapportionment. All other indicators come from the 2007-11 and current 2017-21 U.S. Census Bureau American Community Surveys (ACSs) to show change over the past ten years. ACS data were obtained at the block group-level of analysis and disaggregated to the block-level using population-weighting. Because Council Districts boundaries are not allowed to split census blocks, block-level data can be reaggregated to Census District boundaries to produce district-level indicators.

Each of the indicator line graphs in the interface includes a light grey dotted line to show the current (2017-21 ACS) Citywide values. For any indicator, if a District’s value (e.g., poverty rate) lies above the grey dotted line, then that District exhibits an “above-average” value for that indicator. On the bottom-right-hand-side of the interface, clicking the button that says “Go to Neighborhoods” will change the controls in the top-right to allow users to filter by Planning Neighborhood as opposed to Council Districts.

Explore the Data

Indicator Rankings

Mapping Council Districts to ZIP Codes