City of San Jose Community Centers

The City of San Jose serves slightly over 1,000,000 people and is the 10th largest city by population in the United States. The City organization has approximately 6,000 employees and Departments that have various functions such as the Fire Department, Police Department, Department of Transportation and internal support Departments like the Finance and Human Resources Department among others. The City is supported by a General Fund budget of $1.1 billion dollars, $1.7 billion in Special Funds, and $729 million in Capital Funds. These Departments aim to serve a very diverse city that has a population breakdown as follows: Asian 34%, Hispanic 33%, White 27%, African American 3%, and Other 3%.

One of the important Departments in every city is the Parks & Recreation Department. Our project will focus on the Parks, Recreation, and Neighborhood Services Department. More specifically, we will focus on the Recreation and Community Services function of the Department, which is in charge of the 12 Community Centers and their associated programming for area residents to enjoy. This function employs 270 FTE (full-time equivalents) and has an Operating Budget of $26.3 million.

Using a dataset from 2015 provided by the City of San Jose, will explore the use of some of these Community Centers and the programs they provide.

Key Variables that are included in this dataset are:
• Season
• Activity Name
• Number of Enrollees
• Starting Time & Ending Time
• Schedule
• Fee

• Location will analyze the data and try to answer questions like
• Does the neighborhood median income correlate with participation in City-provided services?
• Do fee levels have an affect on number of participants? Does it vary by neighborhood if so?
• Do times of activities have an affect on number of participants?
• Do days of activities have an affect on number of participants?
• Using these different variables provided, can we provide projections on use of future classes?