NetSquared Mashup Challenge: Bringing Together Government, Nonprofit and Grassroots GIS in the City of New Orleans
Ed McGinnis & Rob Schaefer (and a Map at UNOP 1) by Maitri Venkat-Ramani.
Funny thing happened on the way to the NetSquared Mashup Challenge in San Jose, CA.
Many of you have gotten in touch with me to talk about your own GIS efforts. We’ve seen an incredible coming together of the nonprofit and neighborhoods engaged in collecting, organizing and analyzing recovery data based on it’s physical location.
Thank you for your outpouring of support. I’m no longer going it alone.
Francine Stock from the Tulane School of Architecture, keeper of the Regional Modernism blog, is going to co-present City of New Orleans: A Mashup for Citizen Monitoring of the Recovery with me at the NetSquared Mashup Challenge conference in San Jose, CA this coming Tuesday, May 27th, 2008. She is the keeper of the Regional Modernism blog. She’s written her ideas for this project in Manifseto for a Mashup.
Thank you for your outpouring of support. Not only will I be joined by Francine Stock and Andrew Turner, who got me involved in NetSquared by insisting that I throw my hat into the ring, but I’ve received the help of many New Orleans organizations that are engaged in the recovery.
- Beacon of Hope
- Carrollton-Hollygrove CDC
- City-Works
- GNOCDC
- Orleans Parish Communication District (New Orleans Emergency 9-1-1)
- Mapufacture
- Morris L. Kahn and Associates
- Squandered Heritage
- Trinity Christian Community
- Tulane School of Architecture
I’m going to arrive in San Jose with the weight of our collective GIS experience.
If there’s any city in the United States that is intimate with the lay of it’s land, it’s New Orleans. We’ve all scoured satilite maps, Sanborn maps, flood elevation maps, we’ve conducted neighborhood surveys, we’ve tracked recovery issues online with Google Maps.
GIS is not just software. It is a discipline. We’re now engaging with our local professionals to use GIS to guide our data collection efforts and sharpen our understanding of our recovery.
Francine and I discussed a strategy for the presentation of the fantastic grassroots GIS efforts in New Orleans.
The message for Silicon Valley is that there is a highly-motivated user base here in New Orleans. We are building what we can with the tools that we have, pushing them to the limits of our understanding. Neogeography has become part of our communication. We’re now constantly cobbling together maps and email them to one another, to see clearly what’s going on. We all appreciate the importance of maps to city planning and we’re all, everyone of us, engaged in planning the future of our city.
As always, I welcome your participation in this conversation, but please leave your comments in the GIS forum where the discussion is ongoing.
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Please submit your comments in the GIS forum there where the developers of this project are collaborating.