--- original post 2/19/09 ------

While several geospatial data companies offer neighborhood data as a product (see my article on a few here), the LA Times laid out its map, Mapping LA (static map, interactive version), to ensure its reporters refer to areas in a standard way. A possible future use: a possible organizing structure for neighborhood information like crime statistics, census information, economic data and links to Times stories, according to Times Database Editor Doug Smith, the map project's coordinator.

The editors are open to input - readers can submit suggested changes. There are currently 87 neighborhoods and Smith hopes even with input the number stays below 100. While there was research done, Smith describes the effort as "seat-of-the-pants than scientific."

The tech for the interactive site? "This site is built entirely with free and open-source software, including Django, OpenLayers and PostgreSQL." It use Google Maps as a base.

Good news for data users: the map data is under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike license and available in KML by neighborhood. Here's the "API" page.

In discussing the map, Bob Pool explains why the city, what Dorothy Parker called, "72 suburbs in search of a city," has such a complex neighborhood situation:

The city of Los Angeles has posted hundreds of blue street signs denoting scores of neighborhoods -- from Little Ethiopia to Little Tokyo to Little Armenia. But the city has never drawn the official boundaries of each district.

- LA Times