This document analyzes types of businesses found in New York City neighborhoods using zip code and NAICS code data. It cleans the data by extracting only NYC data and converting zip codes to ZCTA regions. It is found that the top 10 most common businesses are retail, food/drinking, personal services, and healthcare. Examples plots show concentrations of certain businesses by ZCTA in Queens, Manhattan, Brooklyn, and the Bronx. Limitations include the data being from 2012 and potential biases in self-reported NAICS codes.

1. Businesses in
NYC
What types of businesses are
found in the city?
By: Divyanka Sharma

2. Aim
 To understand what types of businesses are
found in New York City
 What are the concentrations, according to
frequency, in each ZCTA?
 Can we compare neighborhoods?
 What types of business should I open?

3. Terms and Data Used
 ZCTA: Zip Code Tabulation Area. These are
conversions of zip codes for easier data
analysis. Small differences but mostly the
same as zip codes. Only NYC ZCTAs used.
 NAICS codes: North American Industry
Classification System. These are codes that
define the industry that businesses fall under

4. Data Sources Used
 ZCTA: downloaded from census bureau
 NAICS codes: dataset bought from Dun and
Bradstreet, a data provider. This contains the
names of all businesses, their NAICS codes,
Zip codes, and other top level information, for
the entire United States. This was bought by
my company.

5. Cleaning the data
 First step is to extract only NYC data from the
US file
 Convert zip codes to ZCTA’s for easy
comparison. Also useful if want to run more
tests using other census info later.
 Attach descriptions of NAICS code id #’s to
the dataset for readability of data

6. What do we find?
 The top 10 most common businesses, by
frequency of physical outlets, are the
following:

8. Example plots of businesses in certain
ZCTAs

9. Queens

10. Manhattan

11. Brooklyn

12. Queens

13. The Bronx

14. Problems with the data
 The data is from 2012, so there could be
some changes
 The NAICS codes themselves are not very
clear. Example: “all other businesses”
category
 This is self reported data, so there can be
biases

15. Future Potential
 Can layer other information on top of this to
study more trends
 Can analyze what businesses an
entrepreneur should look into starting in
certain ZCTAs
 If time series data available, plot the change
in frequency of businesses