Recovery.gov Relaunched with ESRI Tech
You’ve likely seen elsewhere that the updated Recovery.gov is up and running. That’s the site the federal government produced to show citizens worldwide (and in the U.S.) how we are spending our stimulus monies. The new version is built on ESRI technology and requires a Flash player.
What I found when exploring this topic:
Computerworld blogger Robert L Mitchell reports:
“While individual states have been experimenting with the use of GIS for tracking and reporting stimulus spending, the level of detail and the use of GIS to visually present the data for a spending program of this size is unprecedented.” Perhaps this is unprecedented for the stimulus (itself unprecedented!), but certainly WebGIS has been used to show this much data, no?
When you leave the homepage map to “drill down” the site provides a pop-up titled “ALL ABOUT THE DATA” which addresses data sources and update information. There other nice features including download to KML and the ability to see a “text view” of the data. There are quite a lot of options; I fear those comfortable with Google Maps may feel a bit overwhelmed. Also interesting: there is no information on the source of the background street and imagery datasets, nor did I find a “help” or “about the maps” option. That latter is where I’d hope to find the data message I saw initially. I’m not sure how I’d find it again.
The main “How to Use the Maps” (below) explains “heat maps” (aka choropleth maps), legends and geocoding (with no street address, or ZIP Code, projects are placed at the state capitol address). It’s eight minutes long and doesn’t include discussions of all the features.
You may also be interested in looking at Recovery.com, a site run by a private data firm, Onvia, which offers similar, but real time data (the Federal site is waiting for reporting in from recipients until October) and the ability to comment. It offers Flash-based maps using Fusion Maps.
- NPR
