Using the Open Data Ottawa website, I was able to find the monthly 311 service request calls in Ottawa broken down by month. As it only had data from January to September, I just used those nine months to show a visualization on noise complaints in Ottawa.
The reason why I chose noise complaints was because as I broke down all calls made to Service Ottawa by ward, noise was always among the top three biggest issues in the area.
After gathering all the data in the form of excel data worksheets, I used pivot tables to filter only wards and noise complaints.
I did this nine times, for every month, and added all the noise complaints together, sorted by ward.
Using this data, I was able to turn it into graphs and charts I could use to show my story, instead of just saying it.
This was the result:
This graph was created using Tableau Public, which allows you to visualize any data you have.
As you can see, Rideau-Vanier, ward 12, had significantly more noise complaints than everything else.
A theory I have for this is the fact that Rideau-Vanier is home to the highest crime rate in the city of Ottawa.
Articles detailing Rideau-Vanier’s high crime can be found here here here and here.
To better explain this would be to show it. Below you will find maps of both the Rideau-Vanier ward and the city of Ottawa, broken down into its 23 wards.
As you can see, Rideau-Vanier is just a tiny, tiny place in comparison to a lot of the other wards, yet it still has the highest noise complaints.
It’s important to note that the wards with the highest noise complaints are situated in the same area, downtown. Somerset, ward 14, Capital ward, ward 17, and Rideau-Rockcliffe, ward 13, are right beside Rideau-Vanier, the ward with the highest amount of noise complaints in 2015, so far.
Using this data, it’s clear that the majority of noise complaints come from the same urban heavy areas.
In conclusion, Rideau-Vanier is the noisiest ward among the 23 in Ottawa. Considering Rideau-Vanier is home to many homeless shelters and has the most crime in the city, it’s no surprise that this is the case.
My sources as well as data can be found here:
http://data.ottawa.ca/dataset/2015-311-monthly-service-request-submissions
http://ottawa.ca/en/city-hall/your-city-government/city-wards
http://www.ottawasun.com/2014/10/09/rideau-vanier-most-complex-ward-in-ottawa
http://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/rideau-vanier-vote
http://www.ottawasun.com/2013/05/29/rideau-vanier-most-dangerous-area-in-ottawa
http://www.davidmckie.com/rideau-vanier-assault-crimes-on-the-rise/