There's a new city-news-maps project starting up called EveryBlock, helmed by Adrian Holovaty (formerly of ChicagoCrime.org and the Washington Post) and other smart people. The idea is to link every news story -- including newspaper articles, crime, restaurant reviews, neighborhood meetings, road closures, press releases, and inspections records, plus blogs and info from Flickr and Yelp and Craigslist -- to a map of a zip code, ward, or other geographic entity. (Here's a sample from Chicago's 3rd Ward.) In other words, you would have on a single map or feed virtually all of the news in your neighborhood.
Right now, EveryBlock is (of course) beginning with New York, Chicago, and San Francisco, but there are hopes to roll it out to other American cities as well. But my interest isn't so much about this site, and how cool and fun and smart it would be if it covered Philadelphia, but about how the internet and other technologies, and their attendant emerging cultural practices, have changed local politics, for the better or the worse. I mean, here we all are, blogging away. I can't be the only one thinking about this.
An Effect of This Will Be To Show How Media Concentrate
An effect of this--probably an unintended one--will be to show how media focus on a small number of areas and undercover the rest of the city and region.
Perhaps if it comes to Philadelphia the media will be more responsive to the vast majority of communities that receive only token media coverage in everything from community events to obituaries.
My neighborhood civic has
My neighborhood civic has been working on mapping abandoned properties in my neighborhood and I've been using Google maps to get it done, so far. The idea is to use it in part as a planning tool and in part as an advocacy tool.
This however is an interesting new possibility.
Thanks.
-Sean
MrLuigi, my cat, actually only types half as badly as I do.