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Project Overview

Motivation

Philadelphia’s neighborhoods vary widely in walkability, access to health and social services, environmental conditions, and mobility infrastructure.
This project constructs a composite Neighborhood Accessibility Index to evaluate these dimensions at the neighborhood scale.

Passyunk Square serves as the primary case study because:

  • It is a mixed-use neighborhood with a strong concentration of local amenities.
  • It has well-developed pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure.
  • It provides a clear contrast to neighborhoods experiencing lower levels of accessibility.

Note on Data Aggregation

Due to late-stage data issues, several components of the accessibility index were computated at the census tract and not aggregated to the neighborhood level.

This will affect the final neighborhood-level accessibility scores, but the tract-level analysis still provides valuable insights into spatial patterns of accessibility across Philadelphia.

Research Questions

  1. How accessible is Passyunk Square relative to other neighborhoods in Philadelphia?
  2. Which components—mobility, land use, environmental, and social—most strongly influence its overall score?
  3. How do different dimensions of accessibility (services, parks, mobility, environmental quality) align or diverge spatially?
  4. What limitations arise from relying on open datasets such as OSMnx, ACS, and NAIP imagery?

Project Workflow

flowchart TD
    A[Collect Data] --> B[Preprocess and Clean]
    B --> C[Normalize Variables (0–1)]
    C --> D[Compute Component Scores]
    D --> E[Construct Composite Accessibility Index]
    E --> F[Visualization: Maps and Charts]
    F --> G[Interpretation and Evaluation]