A Map of Every City Demolition for Every Zip Code In Orleans Parish Thanks to EditGrid and P.K. Chan
The city demolition list for 70119. View larger map for greater map detail.
Above are the demolitions in my neighborhood and in all of zip code 70119. Would you like to see the demolitions in your neighborhood? Read on, there’s a map for every zip code in Orleans Parish after the jump.
But, I want to tell you about why I like the Internet and with I like software people.
I like the Internet because it connects you with people as far away as Hong Kong and allows you to collaborate with them, or in this case, it allows them to collaborate with you.
I like software people, because they create incredibly useful tools and for the most part, they are happy if you’ll just use them. All you have to do is be alert enough to know that you’re on the receiving end of a good deed.
Unfortunately, no one can accuse me of being alert.
This a post about a cool contribution to the New Orleans recovery by P.K. Chan, a look at more of the cool things EditGrid can do, and a bleated thank you.
When Matt McBride first created a spreadsheet of the city’s targeted demolition list, I published his article at Think New Orleans, as I always do when Matt sends out his research emails. I put the data in an EditGrid spreadsheet and placed it online with his article.
Th article is Updated Version of the City’s 1,400 Property Demolition Target List and the most recent version of Matt’s spreadsheet is February Property Demolition Target List.
When FEMA created the list, the took GPS coordinates. The next day I generated a Google Map using Super Snert. Unfortunately, Google Maps was slow with the 1,400 data points. There was no quick and easy way to break up the spreadsheet into smaller chunks.
Or so I thought.
Shortly thereafter, a fellow named P.K. Chan stopped by. He is of the developers of EditGrid. He began to explain how you can generate maps directly from EditGrid. He then wired it up so that you could view the demolitions on a one map per zip code.
I quite frankly, didn’t get it. It took me a long time to getting around to looking at Mr. Chan’s submission. I finally did, just yesterday. I’m kicking myself now.
It’s fabulous. Basically, directly from EditGrid he generates a map that can be viewed in Google Maps, filtering by zip code. It is much, much faster than viewing the entire city at once.
It is now a useful tool. Go and see who’s on the city demolition list in your neighborhood.
You can attach an XSLT transform to an EditGrid spreadsheet. P.K. Chan wrote one that spits out KML, the file format used by Google Earth and Google Maps. His transform filters by zip code, so you only need to change the zip code in the web address to get a new KML file.
But, what do you do with a KML file? I didn’t know. Turns out you go to Google Maps an put the web address of the KML file in the search box.
Then Google Maps will request the web address from EditGrid. At EditGrid the current spreadsheet is run through the transform. In this case it spits out KML, the Google Maps file format. Google Maps renders the result.
Unlike yours truly, P.K. Chan took the time to figure out what’s going on over here. He read through Matt’s article and added a bunch of nice application-specific details. The popup balloons have the address, the work order, and the type of demolition. The owner is listed where available. The icons indicate different demolition types as well. A red square is IHA, a white square is IHT, and a start is owner initiated.
Below, you’ll find links to maps of the demolitions by zip code.
- 70112
- 70113
- 70114
- 70115
- 70116
- 70117
- 70118
- 70119
- 70122
- 70124
- 70125
- 70126
- 70127
- 70128
- 70129
- 70130
- 70131
Now that I finally get it, I’m going to work with Mr. Chan’s transform to create maps from the permits spreadsheet.
Don’t know what else to say, except that I’m really impressed with EditGrid, both the product and the people behind it. Thank you for this contribution to our efforts. It is just too cool for words.
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