{"id":362,"date":"2018-07-05T18:21:37","date_gmt":"2018-07-05T18:21:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.renthop.com\/content-manager\/?post_type=studies&p=9083"},"modified":"2018-07-06T16:27:49","modified_gmt":"2018-07-06T16:27:49","slug":"chicagos-dog-poop-problem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.renthop.com\/research\/chicagos-dog-poop-problem\/","title":{"rendered":"Chicago, the Poopy City – A Closer Look at Chicago\u2019s Dog Poop Problem"},"content":{"rendered":"
We have all been there, enjoying a beautiful spring day, maybe walking to meet some friends for dinner. Suddenly \u2013 SQUISH \u2013 uh-oh. In a split second, there is a rush of feelings: anger, sadness, embarrassment or maybe even nausea. You could not help but wonder “who on earth doesn’t clean up after their furry little friends?” While we at RentHop cannot tell you who they are, using Chicago\u2019s data on Sanitation Code Complaints and some data science, we can tell you when and where they are.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Well, it would be weird if they did not. It is fair to say that no one in this world is happy to see dog feces on the street, not to mention stepping on it, and so clearly when we spot dog poop, we want to get rid of it. Less obviously, dog waste is, in fact, a primary source of food for rodents. The more dog waste there is, the more rats you might spot in your neighborhood. (On a side note, Chicago is the most rat-infested city in the U.S., worse than New York and Los Angeles, even though the population of New York is around three times of Chicago’s.) One could make a case that rats are even more disgusting than dog poop since they carry diseases and reproduce. Regardless, both have negative impacts on our overall wellbeing.<\/p>\n
While one might think there is no science in dog poop complaints, we at RentHop were able to find some fascinating trends. The first thing we noticed was the correlation between neighborhoods and the number of complaints. Neighborhoods further from the city center had a significantly higher number of complaints, as shown on the map below.<\/p>\n