About

What is 311?

The Citizens' Service Bureau (CSB) is the customer service department for the City of St. Louis, and can be reached by dialing 311. The CSB handles a range of complaints and services requests and can direct you to the correct City services or programs, or to make a request for service. The data represented on this site is mapped over a period of time from 2014 to present-day Our data is collected from the publicly available Citizens' Service Bureau (CSB) Service Requests (311) Dataset.

We visualize two statistics of interest: the number of calls in a given area, and the average time it took to close a call. We break the data down by year, and allow users to select which types of calls they are interested in. St. Louis has a history of racial discrimination tied to geography, with historically marginalized-majority areas of the city significantly underserved in comparison to whiter areas. We include racial and income data to help understand how these patterns may tie into 311 utilization and service.

The Controls

Count of Calls vs. Mean Days to Close

There are two radio buttons that toggle the type of data represented by the map. By clicking the radio button labelled "Count of Calls", the map displays the values of the number of service calls made in each block group. By clicking the radio button lablled "Mean Days to Close", the map displays the average time (in days) recorded to close or resolve the case corresponding to the service call that was made.

Categories

Calls for service are divided into twelve different groups, listed below. You can select or deselect each category based on whether or not you want to include that data. If call counts are being visualized, then calls are added across checked categories. If average time to call closure is being visualized, the time to closure is averaged checked categories. The "Select All" and "Deselect All" buttons are there to expedite the checking process. Categories are as follows:

  • Waste - This includes Debris, Community Sanitation, and Recycling.
  • Vegetation - This includes Trees, Weeds, and Grass.
  • Traffic Control Signals - This includes Street Lights/Signs and Traffic Signals.
  • Property Inspection - This includes possible building violations or health violations.
  • Right of Way Issues - This includes street or alley problems, sidewalk repair, potholes, street cleanings, etc.
  • Graffiti - This includes vandalism of businesses, community centers, and residential areas.
  • Animals - This includes stray animals, dangerous animals, and owner non-compliance with animal laws.
  • Vehicles - This includes parking violations, tickets, etc.
  • Other - This includes Information Calls, Fire Safety, Food Control, Parks, Air Pollution, Discrimination, etc.
  • Water - This includes running water, open hydrants, and water quality issues.
  • Disability Issues - This includes concerns on disabled parking, ADA accessibility of public buildings and programs, etc.
  • Nuisance Complaint - A continuing or recurring act or physical condition which is made by any owner on any premises which is injurious or detrimental to the health, safety, welfare, or convenience of the inhabitants of University City.

Year Slider

Drag slider to progress through the years from 2014 to 2022. Doing this updates the map data to only display the number of calls or average days to close that were made during that corresponding year.

The Map

The map displays the city of St. Louis, bordered on the right side (in red) by the state of Illinois and on the left side (in yellow) by the state of Missouri. The city itself is divided into census block groups. Block groups are statistical divisions of census tracts, are generally defined to contain between 600 and 3,000 people, and are useful in our application as they are a unit for which the government reports many population-level statistics 1. The color of each block group represents either the total count of calls or the mean of days to close a call for service in that block group. The darker the color, the larger the count/mean.

The Tooltip

The tooltip for the map displays more detailed information and statistics about a specific block group. The content of the tooltip is visible on hover. The format of the tooltip is as follows:

  • Total calls or average time to close
  • Racial demographics of the block group (White, Black, Hispanic, Asian/Pacific Islander, American Indian/Alaska Native)
  • Percentage of adults living below the poverty level in the block group
  • Neighborhoods of St. Louis overlapping with the block group

1 Bureau, US Census. “Geography Data.” Census.gov, December 20, 2021. https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/geography/data.html.