Creating Neighborhoods in Sturgis, Michigan

I wrote about the recent interest in neighborhood level data in Directions Magazine. I learned that many neighborhoods have fuzzy boundaries since they are not formal designations. The names, too, tend toward informal. But in Sturgis, Michigan (population in 2000, about 11,000), there’s a move to formally name and bound neighborhoods. An article in the local paper explains how volunteers are working on the project which is expected to make for better representation of citizens to the city government and encourage neighbors to help neighbors. Once determined, residents will learn about the suggested neighborhood name via utility bills.

Geotagged images on the Net? About 5%

That’s according to Flickr, noted in an AP article about the wonders of geotagging. While touting the upside of automatically allowing the finding of images for an area and the rebirth of at least one photographer’s stock imagery business, the article notes the downsides:

There are privacy considerations, and the failure of satellite-dependent GPS to work reliably indoors. Also complicating matters is the fact that GPS devices tag the location of the photographer, while the landmark being photographed could be miles away (British entrepreneur Richard Jelbert attempts to solve that by embedding a compass that can help calculate the landmark’s actual location.)

But most importantly, geotagging typically involves carrying an extra gadget and fiddling with software on a computer at home.

Updated Real Estate Site Touts Proprietary Map Search

Why would a press release about an updated real estate site for Chicago note its “extraordinary, proprietary interactive map and address search that lets users see everything there is to do and see around a specified location?” I understand “extraordinary” and “lets user see everything”; I guess proprietary still means not only “we are the only ones who have it” but also, “it’s way better than everyone else’s.”

It did work on me; I checked out the site which offers a Google Maps-based search tool and that includes overlays of locations of restaurants, gyms, grocery stores, etc. It’s sort of a combination local search/real estate search tool. Also of note, you can fill out a form to receive a free printed Chicago neighborhoods map. (pdf) I guess I’d have put that in the press release!

By the way, I found no sources for the data on the mapping app, but was disappointed that mousing over say a museum didn’t reveal its name, but rather its address.

Quote of the Week

“I’ve said before that there’s nothing sacred about the ZIP code appreciation map. We just do it that way because it’s convenient and interesting.”

Housing analyst Larry Murphy, of SalesTraq, in the a Las Vegas Review Journal article noting that in 56 of 61 ZIP Codes in Las Vegas had lower median housing prices in 2007. There’s a map, but it has no legend I could find.

Old Poll, New Poll

A while back I asked about which “geo” past-time takes up the most time. Of 62 respondents, the breakdown was:

Reading geoblogs - 36%
Exploring online 2D/3D maps/globes - 33%
Building “not for work” mapshups/apps - 12%
Something else - 12%
Visiting virtual worlds - 9%
Building “not for work” 3D models - 2%

Next up, what’s most likely to sway you to push to attend a geo conference?

Vote in the lower right hand side of our homepage.