Data Visualization

Nov. 2023

New York City

Group work with Lydia Li and Melanie Chu

Instagram has become a powerful tool people use to explore places and it is a database that is created by public and without an agency. We realized there are two New York Cities, one is what we see on social media, one is the reality that are rendered invisible on a single photo dimension. The world on social media looks more livable, safer, and better. Does this mean that people would prefer to live in such an instagrammable city? And What does it mean to urban designers to make the space more instagrammable?
We mapped daily hotspots using hourly ridership data from the New York subway. Additionally, we identified hotspots by analyzing the number of likes and comments on Instagram. The compare analyses encompasses three dimensions: trees, crime, and neighborhood restaurants. This serves as the starting point for comparing the real-world scenario with the portrayal on social media