We may be the only people in New York City who are pretty obsessed with rats, apart from writer Robert Sullivan who wrote an amazing book about the NYC rat. Thus, we were rather excited to see yet another map about rats (the last being which neighborhoods had more rats in their restaurants). This rat map by MIT’s “You Are Here” project maps out 311 rat complaints. Not only is it a map, it’s a video visualization of rat complains. Bottom line is if you hate rats, aim for Queens and avoid NYC in general during the summer. Rat lovers should go to Brooklyn. That being said, this data measures rat complaints as a percentage of the human population, so maybe Brooklynites are simply complaining more about rats, in which case the rat lovers should probably stay put where they are. For lovers of maps, MIT’s “You Are Here” have also mapped up rodent incident reports in Boston, Washington and Chicago, along with graffiti in many cities. To find out why rats don’t make her flinch, get in touch with the author @untappedmich.
