UrbaNerd: New York City Saw 600 Protests in 2017

If you find something compelling about the mere sight of people standing up for what they believe in, New York City offers all manner of inspiration. There are the marches against racial injustice that shut down whole segments of the city. There are the sidewalk encampments featuring a small number of Falun Gong followers. There’s the lonely guy with an anti-abortion sandwich board who roams midtown.

Agree or disagree with the message, you have to respect people who take the time and brave the cold, heat or rain to deliver it.

Some of these protests make headlines but most don’t. Some aren’t even noticed by most New Yorkers. They’re all part of New York’s role as a place where political expression of all types is, if not welcomed, tolerated. But it’s usually hard to get a full sense of the scale of protest in the city.

Now, New Yorkers for Parks has tabulated all the protests occurring in public spaces in 2017 and found 640 events involving more than 640,000 people.

The organization has organized the data into an interactive map here, and produced this brief analysis of what spaces and topics were the most popular.

The data below comes from them; a more detailed version is available on their website.