Discussions of gentrification and the housing crisis have dominated urban policy discussions across the United States in 2018. Many activists argue that the profit motive is to blame, and that housing should be a human right, while others contend that developers would build cheaper housing if regulations enabled cheaper development. The question this project explores is: is there a relationship between the demographic/economic composition of a neighborhood and the amount of new building, whether legal or illegal (conversions included)? I plan to answer it by examining census data to get a better picture of neighborhood and citizen characteristics, and both NYC Department of Buildings and 311 building permit and illegal conversion complaint data to understand the way a given neighborhood may be developing. We’re interesting in economic and racial demographic shifts, and how they might be related to development (both legal and otherwise).