Hexes are H3 cells (
h3geo.org), generated in the browser for the current view, so there is no tileset. Values are joined on the fly by H3 ID, loading one file per resolution 3 parent cell (about 12,000 km²) in view, for the layer shown.
Employment access: Census LEHD LODES 2022 jobs at block-group centroids, 60-mile cutoff, distances under one mile counted as one mile (the CNT H+T method), as in the CommunityScale H+T model.
Activity: the activity score of the CommunityScale Massachusetts downtown taxonomy, summed over each hex. Buildings from the USACE National Structure Inventory 2022 (storefronts: retail, personal and repair services, banks, restaurants and entertainment, theaters; civic: government and houses of worship). Daily-service jobs from LEHD LODES 2023 workplace data (retail; arts, entertainment and recreation; accommodation and food; other services), at each 2020 block's internal point, so a big employer on one large block puts all its jobs in one hex. Covers the hexes whose center is in the eight Southern Tier counties; buildings and jobs across the Pennsylvania line count toward the hexes on it.
Land use mix: a direct version of the CommunityScale NumberLU land use count, in its taxonomy v3 categories (less mixed use, which needs parcel records). Places from OpenStreetMap (Overpass, October 2026) and Overture Maps places (release 2026-10-21.0, which conflates Meta, Microsoft, Foursquare and other registries; open places at confidence 0.5 or more), with an Overture place within 50 m of an OSM place of the same category counted once. Home-service contractors and farm services are left out because these registries place them at the owner's house; parks, trails, transport and historic markers are left out as passive land. Housing: 2020 Census housing units at each block's internal point. Southern Tier counties only.
Intersection density: the CommunityScale H+T model's method (EPA SLD D3B) run on the hexes: TIGER 2024 All Roads without trails, walkways and private roads; a junction counts when its roads point three or more ways and one of them is not a highway, ramp, service drive or parking lot (3-way 0.667, 4-way 1), plus crossings TIGER leaves unjoined; divided by land area, the hex less TIGER 2024 area water. Only hexes with at least one weighted intersection are colored; hexes under 10% land get no value. Roads across county and state lines count. Southern Tier counties only. Added up over the block groups they fall in, the hexes match the atlas layer (median ratio 1.01, rank correlation 0.98).
Water and sewer: the public water and sewer service areas of the Southern Tier map's Infrastructure detail layer (the same polygons as the suitability tests map): EPA Public Water System Service Area Boundaries (community systems, 2026) overlaid on New York State Sewersheds (2022). Shares are of each hex's land, the hex less TIGER 2024 area water. Approximate service areas; not for parcel-level decisions. Southern Tier counties only.
Transit frequency: the atlas's aggregate frequency measure, as in the Southern Tier map's "Most + frequent transit" class: departures per hour in the weekday 4–7 pm peak, summed over every GTFS stop within a quarter mile of the hex's edge, with 4 or more counting as frequent. Stops and schedules are the CommunityScale H+T model's national GTFS tables (Mobility Database feeds, February 2026); a feed that had lapsed by then is missing. Departures are summed across stops, so a bus passing two nearby stops counts twice. Southern Tier counties only.
Healthcare access: hospitals and pharmacies within half a mile of each hex's center, each adding 1 at the center and less with distance, down to nothing at half a mile. Hospitals: USACE National Structure Inventory 2022 hospital buildings (as in the MA downtowns map), merged into campuses within 600 m and kept at 10,000 sq ft or more. Pharmacies: OpenStreetMap and Overture Maps places (including Foursquare records), a store in both counted once. Southern Tier counties only.
Flood zone: FEMA's National Flood Hazard Layer, the Special Flood Hazard Area (the 1% annual chance or "100-year" floodplain: zones A, AE, AH, AO, AR, A99, V and VE, with the regulatory floodway), from the CommunityScale data lake's national flood layer. That layer leaves out the 500-year (0.2%) zone, and land FEMA has not mapped reads as outside the floodplain. FEMA's national layer has no digital flood map for most of Broome County (Binghamton included), so Broome hexes read as outside the floodplain there. Shares are of each hex's land, the hex less TIGER 2024 area water, since the floodplain takes in the rivers themselves. Southern Tier counties only.
Steep slopes: land at 25% grade or steeper, from the CommunityScale data lake's national slope layer: USGS 3DEP 1 arc-second (about 30 m) elevation, slope in percent grade, patches under a quarter acre dropped. A 30 m grid smooths out small cuts and banks, so it tends to under-count steep ground rather than over-count it. Shares are of each hex's land, the hex less TIGER 2024 area water. Southern Tier counties only.
Land: Census Bureau 2024 cartographic boundary states (1:500,000), clipped to the shoreline.