Mysociety.org has created this amazing application to help citizens in London determine where they can live based on commute times, affordability and “scenicness.” The program is in beta but this short video below demonstrates its awesome potential. (To take the Who’s Your City? place finder, click here.)
This is the potential open data can unleash. Because MySociety can access transit and train schedules as well as real estate prices, they are able to mash up this data and create this map. Still more interesting is how they crowd-sourced the collection of a new data set. Those who watched the video may have noticed how the “scenicness” of an area came from people voting on how nice photos of different neighborhoods looked.
Mysociety also does maps that just show transit times and they are looking for funding to build them out in different cities.
Of course, the job is made a whole lot easier – and can be kept up to date – if the data is being shared in a format that constantly allows for updates. Just another example of how Open Cities can again better serve their citizens.
June 11th, 2009 at 9:02 pm
There’s a reference in the video to the site “ScenicOrNot” You can find it at:
http://scenic.mysociety.org/
It’s interesting to be able to rate the scenicness of a view from anywhere in Britain and then find out the average rating of what others think of it.