In the Spring 2015, we began a project that advances the mission and goals of the Safe Streets neighborhood organization of Binghamton, NY, and provides graduate students in Anthropology and Public Administration at Binghamton University with community-based research experience.

The project entails the collection of interviews from residents and community leadership (e.g., shopkeepers, property owners, pastors, community organizers) in a 20-block neighborhood of Binghamton (north of Main Street between Front Street and Jarvis Street) to identify the qualities people value about their neighborhood (past and present), how neighborhood change is told through place-based stories, and the indicators that community members identify as signs of change.

Students will also research other markers of sustainability at the neighborhood level that can effectively be tracked over time. The collection of place-based stories, interview data, and sustainability markers may unfold over a series of classes in subsequent semesters and this project will be the first step in a longer-term research project aimed at understanding neighborhood transformation.

In the short term, interview data will be evaluated quantitatively and qualitatively to produce a GIS-based “story map” that can be added to in the future and other data will be compiled into a community inventory.

Learn more about our project.

Learn more about our principal investigators.