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Mapping your data

Because everyone loves maps

Steve Saylor

Bob Gradeck

David Walker

Located at the University of Pittsburgh

http://www.wprdc.org

https://github.com/WPRDC

https://twitter.com/wprdc/

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Publication of civic data

Old ways to get data from local governments

Police blotter in newspaper

Visit the Hall of Records

Freedom of Information Act/Right-to-Know requests

Know the right person and ask

Governments have been publishing data for a long time but it’s generally selective publishing.

1849 – A network of some 150 volunteer weather observers all over the USA was set up as a part of the Smithsonian Institution's Meteorological Project started by the Smithsonian’s first Secretary, Joseph Henry, who used the telegraph to gather volunteers’ data and create a large weather map, making new information available to the public daily. For instance, volunteers tracked a tornado passing through Wisconsin and sent the findings via telegraph to the Smithsonian. Henry’s project is considered the origin of what later became the National Weather Service. Within a decade, the project had more than 600 volunteer observers and had spread to Canada, Mexico, Latin America, and the Caribbean.^[23]

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Publication of civic data

Data has been traditionally closed by default and in many incompatible forms.

What if we could make government data open by default?

Governments have been publishing data for a long time but it’s generally selective publishing.

1849 – A network of some 150 volunteer weather observers all over the USA was set up as a part of the Smithsonian Institution's Meteorological Project started by the Smithsonian’s first Secretary, Joseph Henry, who used the telegraph to gather volunteers’ data and create a large weather map, making new information available to the public daily. For instance, volunteers tracked a tornado passing through Wisconsin and sent the findings via telegraph to the Smithsonian. Henry’s project is considered the origin of what later became the National Weather Service. Within a decade, the project had more than 600 volunteer observers and had spread to Canada, Mexico, Latin America, and the Caribbean.^[23]

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What makes data “open”?

OPEN DATA:

Machine-readable

Accessible

Standardized form

Has a permissive license

MASHable data supports the combination of different datasets.

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The WPRDC is a regional data center

We work with government and organizations to publish open data on our data portal (https://wprdc.org).
We help people use our data through outreach, workshops, and training.
We build tools to make our data more useful.

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Data Publishers

Allegheny County

City of Pittsburgh

Baldwin Borough

University of Pittsburgh

Pittsburgh Parking Authority

Allegheny County Airport Authority

Port Authority of Allegheny County

WPRDC

Healthy Ride

BikePGH

Green Building Alliance

Urban Redevelopment Authority of Pittsburgh

Housing Authority of the City of Pittsburgh

Southwestern Pennsylvania Commission

Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh

Envision Downtown

Grow Pittsburgh

Pittsburgh Public Schools

A+ Schools

Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership

3 Rivers Wet Weather

DATA

Users

Citizens

Researchers

Students

Non-profit organizations

Companies

Other governmental organizations

Publishers

Journalists

Legal Infrastructure

Engagement Infrastructure

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Building civic capacity:

Workshops + data counseling

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Some of our 328 datasets

Property Data

Sales & market value analysis
Assessments & assessment appeals
Liens & petitions for foreclosures

Geospatial Data

Property boundaries
Neighborhood/police zone boundaries

Transit Data

Healthy Ride bike trip records
Parking transactions
Passenger counts on buses by stop (coming soon!)

Cool Datasets

Dog licenses
311 complaints
City-owned trees

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Explaining data to facilitate its use

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Explaining data to facilitate its use

Data dictionaries for each dataset

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Explaining data to facilitate its use

Data dictionaries for each dataset

Data stewards for each dataset

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Explaining data to facilitate its use

Data dictionaries for each dataset

Data stewards for each dataset

Data guides

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Tools (Geocoding + Reverse geocoding)

Geomancer

Uses Datamade’s usaddress package for address parsing and WPRDC open data for everything else.

https://tools.wprdc.org/geo/

https://github.com/WPRDC/Geomancer

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How can we map all that open data?

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Elements of a web map

Points - Represented as latitude and longitude coordinates

Posvar Hall is at 40.4415544,-79.9539847

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Elements of a web map

Point - Represents a location as latitude and longitude coordinates

Posvar Hall is at 40.4415544,-79.9539847

LineString - A list of points, representing a path or street.

[[40.4367244,-79.9637211], [40.4417953,-79.9564899], [40.4415544,-79.9539847]]

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Elements of a web map

Point - Represents a location as latitude and longitude coordinates

Posvar Hall is at 40.4415544,-79.9539847

LineString - A list of points, representing a path or street.

[[40.4367244,-79.9637211], [40.4417953,-79.9564899], [40.4415544,-79.9539847]]

Polygon - A closed loop of points, representing a boundary or area.

[[40.4426843,-79.9546177], [40.4421671,-79.9543727], [40.4423519,-79.9536928], [40.442854,-79.9538987], [40.4426843,-79.9546177]]

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Elements of a web map

Base map -

Consists of map tiles, often from Google Maps or OpenStreetMap.

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File formats for map data

CSV (Comma-Separated Values)

location,latitude,longitude

221B Baker St,51.520664584, -0.15499938

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File formats

CSV

GeoJSON

{

"type": "FeatureCollection",

"features": [{

"type": "Feature",

"geometry": {

"type": "Point",

"coordinates": [ -0.15499938,51.520664584 ]

},

"properties": {

"location": "221B Baker St"

}}]

}

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File formats

CSV

GeoJSON

KML (Keyhole

Markup Language)

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<Point>

</Point>

<Data name="location">221B Baker St</Data>

</ExtendedData>

</Placemark>

</Document>

</kml>

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Mapping software options

Carto ArcGIS Online	Mapbox Google My Maps	Leaflet
ArcGIS		QGIS

online

desktop

$$$$$ “Freemium” Free

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Mapping software options

Vendor lock-in

Carto ArcGIS Online	Mapbox Google My Maps	Leaflet
ArcGIS		QGIS

online

desktop

$$$$$ “Freemium” Free

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Mapping software options

Vendor lock-in

Open-source vs. closed-source software

Carto ArcGIS Online	Mapbox Google My Maps	Leaflet
ArcGIS		QGIS

online

desktop

$$$$$ “Freemium” Free

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Mapping software options

Vendor lock-in

Open-source vs. closed-source software

Long-term costs

Carto ArcGIS Online	Mapbox Google My Maps	Leaflet
ArcGIS		QGIS

online

desktop

$$$$$ “Freemium” Free

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Examples

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Data visualization through fancier maps