NeighborhoodStatisticalAreas

The City needed geographical area definitions that were homogenous and non-political. The preexisting Neighborhoods feature class was defined to maintain homogenous areas of the City, but they were determined to be too discrete and numerous. Pertaining to size as well, it was believed that the geographical areas should not be so large, as to group together areas of the City that were dissimilar in character. Of particular importance, it was also a requirement that NSA geography was designed to permit analysis using Census data.

It was decided by the Planning Dept that adhering to Census Block Groups was the best approach. It was also determined that attempts to approximate the Planning Districts would also be beneficial. The approach to defining the NSAs was as follows: a) 2010 Census Block Groups were merged together to create each individual NSA, b) they were grouped in ways to maximize the ability to share boundaries with existing Planning Districts were ever possible. While most NSAs lie almost entirely within one Planning District, some NSAs are pretty equally split between two planning districts (notably D-1). In the case of D-1, PDR arbitrarily decided to put it with the other ‘Downtown’ NSAs.

The identification/naming of the NSAs was based upon the Planning Districts they most corresponded to, along with a sequential numbering assignment. Most NSA lie almost entirely within one Planning District, and where named from that Planning District. Names starting with "NO" are mostly in the North planning district; "NW" are mostly in the Near West planning district; "BR" are mostly in the Broad Rock planning district, etc... There’s no significance for the number following the planning district lettering used by NSAs (NO-1, NO-2, NO-3, etc). The number was just randomly assigned to further uniquely define the area subdivided within the Planning District, and has no relationship in terms to square area, population density, or anything.

该城市亟需定义同质且非政治化的地理区域。现有的邻里区域特征类旨在维护城市的同质区域，但经认为其过于离散且数量繁多。在规模方面，人们普遍认为地理区域不应过大，以免将城市中性质迥异的地域进行分组。尤为重要的是，NSA地理设计还应允许使用人口普查数据进行分析。
城市规划部门决定，遵循人口普查区组是最佳方法。同时，还决定尝试近似规划区也将是有益的。定义NSA的方法如下：a) 将2010年人口普查区组合并以创建每个独立的NSA，b) 通过最大化与现有规划区共享边界的可能性进行分组。尽管大多数NSA几乎完全位于一个规划区内，但某些NSA在两个规划区之间大致均衡分布（特别是D-1区）。在D-1区的情况下，PDR任意决定将其与其他‘市中心’NSA归为一类。
NSA的标识/命名基于其最相对应的规划区，并配以序号分配。大多数NSA几乎完全位于一个规划区内，并以此规划区命名。以“NO”开头的名称主要位于北部规划区；“NW”主要位于近西部规划区；“BR”主要位于Broad Rock规划区等。NSA使用的规划区字母后的数字（如NO-1、NO-2、NO-3等）并无实际意义。该数字仅是随机分配，以进一步唯一化定义规划区内部划分的区域，与面积、人口密度或其他因素无关。