The FAA recently released the locations of registered drones around the country. Using that data, the Boston Globe offered up a city-based map showing where the drones are around the state, though I think they got the data wrong. Their count only shows 122 drones in Newton. When I looked at zip code data, ignoring cities, I came up with 145. Some records came up only as “MA” with a Newton zip code while others showed up by village name instead of city name. This could explain the discrepancy. It could also be in how they counted Chestnut HIll, since a number of drones are there and that zipcode crosses between Newton and Brookline.
In any case, I ran a map on the zip code data and came up with the locations of hobby drones. There is also data on professional drones, but there are far fewer of those so it’s not as interesting of a map. I’m just learning how to play with Tabbleau, so I hope I embedded it correctly.
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FAA registration was free for the first few months so a lot of people registered just to get a number even if they don’t own a drone, so that could bias the number high. Also, some people probably just didn’t register. It’s like trying to count the number of cars in Newton based on driver’s licenses–it’s not a one to one ratio.
And yes, zip codes are not a subset of cities and towns, so the “newton zips” will not add up to Newton’s boundaries.