Pittsburgh Neighborhoods

Allows users to look up City of Pittsburgh Neighborhoods

Most of the text in this description originally appeared on the Mapping Inequality Website. Robert K. Nelson, LaDale Winling, Richard Marciano, Nathan Connolly, et al., “Mapping Inequality,” American Panorama, ed. Robert K. Nelson and Edward L. Ayers,

"HOLC staff members, using data and evaluations organized by local real estate professionals--lenders, developers, and real estate appraisers--in each city, assigned grades to residential neighborhoods that reflected their "mortgage security" that would then be visualized on color-coded maps. Neighborhoods receiving the highest grade of "A"--colored green on the maps--were deemed minimal risks for banks and other mortgage lenders when they were determining who should received loans and which areas in the city were safe investments. Those receiving the lowest grade of "D," colored red, were considered "hazardous."

Conservative, responsible lenders, in HOLC judgment, would "refuse to make loans in these areas [or] only on a conservative basis." HOLC created area descriptions to help to organize the data they used to assign the grades. Among that information was the neighborhood's quality of housing, the recent history of sale and rent values, and, crucially, the racial and ethnic identity and class of residents that served as the basis of the neighborhood's grade. These maps and their accompanying documentation helped set the rules for nearly a century of real estate practice. "

HOLC agents grading cities through this program largely "adopted a consistently white, elite standpoint or perspective. HOLC assumed and insisted that the residency of African Americans and immigrants, as well as working-class whites, compromised the values of homes and the security of mortgages. In this they followed the guidelines set forth by Frederick Babcock, the central figure in early twentieth-century real estate appraisal standards, in his Underwriting Manual: "The infiltration of inharmonious racial groups ... tend to lower the levels of land values and to lessen the desirability of residential areas."

These grades were a tool for redlining: making it difficult or impossible for people in certain areas to access mortgage financing and thus become homeowners. Redlining directed both public and private capital to native-born white families and away from African American and immigrant families. As homeownership was arguably the most significant means of intergenerational wealth building in the United States in the twentieth century, these redlining practices from eight decades ago had long-term effects in creating wealth inequalities that we still see today. Mapping Inequality, we hope, will allow and encourage you to grapple with this history of government policies contributing to inequality."

Data was copied from the Mapping Inequality Website for communities in Western Pennsylvania where data was available. These communities include Altoona, Erie, Johnstown, Pittsburgh, and New Castle. Data included original and georectified images, scans of the neighborhood descriptions, and digital map layers. Data here was downloaded on June 9, 2020.

This dataset contains two versions of the map of Pittsburgh City Council Districts, the current one (dating from 2022) and an earlier one (dating from 2012), each in multiple formats.

For older city council district maps going back to 2022, see https://data.wprdc.org/dataset/pittsburgh-city-council-district-map

Boundaries for Pittsburgh City Council

This EnviroAtlas dataset shows the boundary of the Pittsburgh, PA Atlas Area. It represents the outside edge of all the block groups included in the EnviroAtlas Area. This dataset was produced by the US EPA to support research and online mapping activities related to EnviroAtlas. EnviroAtlas (https://www.epa.gov/enviroatlas) allows the user to interact with a web-based, easy-to-use, mapping application to view and analyze multiple ecosystem services for the contiguous United States. The dataset is available as downloadable data (https://edg.epa.gov/data/Public/ORD/EnviroAtlas) or as an EnviroAtlas map service. Additional descriptive information about each attribute in this dataset can be found in its associated EnviroAtlas Fact Sheet (https://www.epa.gov/enviroatlas/enviroatlas-fact-sheets).

City of Pittsburgh Emergency Medical Services Districts

This webmap demarcates municipal voting districts in Allegheny County.

If viewing this description on the Western Pennsylvania Regional Data Center’s open data portal (http://www.wprdc.org), this dataset is harvested on a weekly basis from Allegheny County’s GIS data portal (http://openac.alcogis.opendata.arcgis.com/). The full metadata record for this dataset can also be found on Allegheny County’s GIS portal. You can access the metadata record and other resources on the GIS portal by clicking on the “Explore” button (and choosing the “Go to resource” option) to the right of the “ArcGIS Open Dataset” text below.

Category: Civic Vitality and Governance

Organization: Allegheny County

Department: Elections Division; Department of Administrative Services

Temporal Coverage: 2016

Data Notes:

Coordinate System: Pennsylvania State Plane South Zone 3702; U.S. Survey Foot

Development Notes: County staff scanned original court maps into the GIS and rubber-sheeted them to fit the Allegheny County GIS Base Data developed from a flyover in 1992-93.

Other: none

Related Document(s): Data Dictionary (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1HR24LyBNpLwvJZoaGp-tBGRw0HRoXNIef6nU4UQQMMo/edit?usp=sharing)

Frequency - Data Change: As needed

Frequency - Publishing: As needed

Data Steward Name: Eli Thomas

Data Steward Email: gishelp@alleghenycounty.us

Pittsburgh Fire Districts

Pittsburgh City Council Districts. In active use 2023-Present

This webmap demarcates municipal voting districts in Allegheny County.

If viewing this description on the Western Pennsylvania Regional Data Center’s open data portal (http://www.wprdc.org), this dataset is harvested on a weekly basis from Allegheny County’s GIS data portal (http://openac.alcogis.opendata.arcgis.com/). The full metadata record for this dataset can also be found on Allegheny County’s GIS portal. You can access the metadata record and other resources on the GIS portal by clicking on the “Explore” button (and choosing the “Go to resource” option) to the right of the “ArcGIS Open Dataset” text below.

Category: Civic Vitality and Governance

Organization: Allegheny County

Department: Elections Divison; Department of Administrative Services

Temporal Coverage: 2015

Data Notes:

Coordinate System: Pennsylvania State Plane South Zone 3702; U.S. Survey Foot

Development Notes: County staff scanned original court maps into the GIS and rubber-sheeted them to fit the Allegheny County GIS Base Data developed from a flyover in 1992-93.

Other: none

Related Document(s): Data Dictionary (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1HR24LyBNpLwvJZoaGp-tBGRw0HRoXNIef6nU4UQQMMo/edit?usp=sharing)

Frequency - Data Change: As needed

Frequency - Publishing: As needed

Data Steward Name: Eli Thomas

Data Steward Email: gishelp@alleghenycounty.us

COVID-19 Cases information is reported through the Pennsylvania State Department’s National Electronic Disease Surveillance System (PA-NEDSS). As new cases are passed to the Allegheny County Health Department they are investigated by case investigators. During investigation some cases which are initially determined by the State to be in the Allegheny County jurisdiction may change, which can account for differences between publication of the files on the number of cases, deaths and tests. Additionally, information is not always reported to the State in a timely manner, delays can range from days to weeks, which can also account for discrepancies between previous and current files. Test and Case information will be updated daily. This resource contains individuals who received a COVID-19 test and individuals whom are probable cases. Every day, these records are overwritten with updates. Each row in the data reflects a person that is tested, not tests that are conducted. People that are tested more than once will have their testing and case data updated using the following rules:

1. Positive tests overwrite negative tests.
2. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests overwrite antibody or antigen (AG) tests.
3. The first positive PCR test is never overwritten. Data collected from additional tests do not replace the first positive PCR test.

Note: On April 4th 2022 the Pennsylvania Department of Health no longer required labs to report negative AG tests. Therefore aggregated counts that included AG tests have been removed from the Municipality/Neighborhood files going forward. Versions of this data up to this cut-off have been retained as archived files.

Individual Test information is also updated daily. This resource contains the details and results of individual tests along with demographic information of the individual tested. Only PCR and AG tests are included. Every day, these records are overwritten with updates. This resource should be used to determine positivity rates.

The remaining datasets provide statistics on death demographics. Demographic, municipality and neighborhood information for deaths are reported on a weekly schedule and are not included with individual cases or tests. This has been done to protect the privacy and security of individuals and their families in accordance with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). Municipality or City of Pittsburgh Neighborhood is based off the geocoded home address of the individual tested.

Individuals whose home address is incomplete may not be in Allegheny County but whose temporary residency, work or other mitigating circumstance are determined to be in Allegheny County by the Pennsylvania Department of Health are counted as "Undefined".

Since the start of the pandemic, the ACHD has mapped every day’s COVID tests, cases, and deaths to their Allegheny County municipality and neighborhood. Tests were mapped to patient address, and if this was not available, to the provider location. This has recently resulted in apparent testing rates that exceeded the populations of various municipalities -- mostly those with healthcare providers. As this was brought to our attention, the health department and our data partners began researching and comparing methods to most accurately display the data. This has led us to leave those with missing home addresses off the map. Although these data will still appear in test, case and death counts, there will be over 20,000 fewer tests and almost 1000 fewer cases on the map. In addition to these map changes, we have identified specific health systems and laboratories that had data uploading errors that resulted in missing locations, and are working with them to correct these errors.

Due to minor discrepancies in the Municipal boundary and the City of Pittsburgh Neighborhood files individuals whose City Neighborhood cannot be identified are be counted as “Undefined (Pittsburgh)”.

On May 19, 2023, with the rescinding of the COVID-19 public health emergency, changes in data and reporting mechanisms prompted a change to an annual data sharing schedule for tests, cases, hospitalizations, and deaths. Dates for annual release are TBD. The weekly municipal counts and individual data produced before this changed are maintained as archive files.

Support for Health Equity datasets and tools provided by Amazon Web Services (AWS) through their Health Equity Initiative.

COVID-19 Cases information is reported through the Pennsylvania State Department’s National Electronic Disease Surveillance System (PA-NEDSS). As new cases are passed to the Allegheny County Health Department they are investigated by case investigators. During investigation some cases which are initially determined by the State to be in the Allegheny County jurisdiction may change, which can account for differences between publication of the files on the number of cases, deaths and tests. Additionally, information is not always reported to the State in a timely manner, delays can range from days to weeks, which can also account for discrepancies between previous and current files. Test and Case information will be updated daily. This resource contains individuals who received a COVID-19 test and individuals whom are probable cases. Every day, these records are overwritten with updates. Each row in the data reflects a person that is tested, not tests that are conducted. People that are tested more than once will have their testing and case data updated using the following rules:

1. Positive tests overwrite negative tests.
2. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests overwrite antibody or antigen (AG) tests.
3. The first positive PCR test is never overwritten. Data collected from additional tests do not replace the first positive PCR test.

Note: On April 4th 2022 the Pennsylvania Department of Health no longer required labs to report negative AG tests. Therefore aggregated counts that included AG tests have been removed from the Municipality/Neighborhood files going forward. Versions of this data up to this cut-off have been retained as archived files.

Individual Test information is also updated daily. This resource contains the details and results of individual tests along with demographic information of the individual tested. Only PCR and AG tests are included. Every day, these records are overwritten with updates. This resource should be used to determine positivity rates.

The remaining datasets provide statistics on death demographics. Demographic, municipality and neighborhood information for deaths are reported on a weekly schedule and are not included with individual cases or tests. This has been done to protect the privacy and security of individuals and their families in accordance with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). Municipality or City of Pittsburgh Neighborhood is based off the geocoded home address of the individual tested.

Individuals whose home address is incomplete may not be in Allegheny County but whose temporary residency, work or other mitigating circumstance are determined to be in Allegheny County by the Pennsylvania Department of Health are counted as "Undefined".

Since the start of the pandemic, the ACHD has mapped every day’s COVID tests, cases, and deaths to their Allegheny County municipality and neighborhood. Tests were mapped to patient address, and if this was not available, to the provider location. This has recently resulted in apparent testing rates that exceeded the populations of various municipalities -- mostly those with healthcare providers. As this was brought to our attention, the health department and our data partners began researching and comparing methods to most accurately display the data. This has led us to leave those with missing home addresses off the map. Although these data will still appear in test, case and death counts, there will be over 20,000 fewer tests and almost 1000 fewer cases on the map. In addition to these map changes, we have identified specific health systems and laboratories that had data uploading errors that resulted in missing locations, and are working with them to correct these errors.

Due to minor discrepancies in the Municipal boundary and the City of Pittsburgh Neighborhood files individuals whose City Neighborhood cannot be identified are be counted as “Undefined (Pittsburgh)”.

Pittsburgh City Council Districts 2012-2022. Not in active use.

This dataset demarcates the municipal boundaries in Allegheny County. Data was created to portray the boundaries of the 130 Municipalities in Allegheny County the attribute table includes additional descriptive information including Councils of Government (COG) affiliation (regional governing and coordinating bodies comprised of several bordering municipalities), School District, Congressional District, FIPS and County Municipal Code and County Council District.

If viewing this description on the Western Pennsylvania Regional Data Center’s open data portal (https://www.wprdc.org), this dataset is harvested on a weekly basis from Allegheny County’s GIS data portal (https://openac.alcogis.opendata.arcgis.com/). The full metadata record for this dataset can also be found on Allegheny County’s GIS portal. You can access the metadata record and other resources on the GIS portal by clicking on the “Explore” button (and choosing the “Go to resource” option) to the right of the “ArcGIS Open Dataset” text below.

Category: Civic Vitality and Governance

Organization: Allegheny County

Department: Geographic Information Systems Group; Department of Information Technology

Temporal Coverage: current

Data Notes:

Coordinate System: Pennsylvania State Plane South Zone 3702; U.S. Survey Foot

Development Notes: none

Other: none

Related Document(s): Data Dictionary (none)

Frequency - Data Change: As needed

Frequency - Publishing: As needed

Data Steward Name: Eli Thomas

Data Steward Email: gishelp@alleghenycounty.us