Hey Anselm, There's ShapeWiki. It's not complete or authoritative, but that's part of the charm.
-B On 9/16/07, Ian White <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > I'm not trying to be commercially-oriented here, just helpful... > > UMI saw this problem and built a database of informal space (which > includes neighborhoods). We have 20k+ in the US and also other parts of the > world... 'Wankers might be interested to look at our services demo: > ws.urbanmapping.com (thank you very much Andrew Turner!). Yes, it's a > commercial endeavor. > > Census tried to create a framework to allow municpalities to define block > groups around neighborhoods, but it didn't gain much traction and died. Part > of the problem is that neighborhoods are (generally) not administratively > defined. The boundaries of "Midtown, NYC?" Your guess is (almost) as good as > mine--we've licensed it to all portals, so our definition is more broadly > known. > > Because they are informally-defined, traditional notions of boundaries do > not apply. Does SoHo have to be adjacent to NoHo? Why can't they overlap? > That's how people think about space, so it follows that you can be in > multiple 'hoods at the same time. It gets messy to create a uniform > definition around something that isn't fact-based, so I don't think it's > well-suited to an open project (or should I say crowdsourcing??). > > The question also touches on a hot-button issue of mine-- the city of > Seattle selling spatial data--they've collected it at taxpayer expense, so > cost recovery is the most they should be charging, but that's not the case > some of the time. It's even worse with parcel data. The security/public > safety argument usually inserts itself here, but as many state courts have > ruled, it's hollow as a rotted birch tree. > > As an aside, the Seattle data Raj mentions might seem 'official,' but it > doesn't really matter--what people perceive as being valuable does. > > On 9/16/07, Raj Singh <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > Looks like for Seattle you can get neighborhoods from the library: > > http://www5.metrokc.gov/sdc/FGDCDocs/NEIGHBORHOOD_fgdc.htm > > or the city for $125: > > http://www.seattle.gov/GIS/docs/datacds.htm > > > > In my 10+ years in the urban planning field, I've never come across a > > national database of neighborhoods. Yes, in some towns neighborhoods > > coincide with wards or census boundaries, but not always. > > > > I'd be very interested in helping out in an effort to develop an open > > neighborhood database repository if I had some help. > > --- > > Raj > > > > > > On Sep 15, 2007, at 3:21 PM, Anselm Hook wrote: > > > > > Is there a free database of American neighborhood names and polygonal > > > boundaries. > > > > > > To elaborate: > > > > > > For example San Francisco has neighborhoods like 'SOMA' or 'chinatown' > > > or 'mission'. > > > > > > My current need is a neighborhood database for Seattle, of which one > > > appears here: > > > > > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seattle_neighborhoods > > > > > > It seems like there may be data behind this - I am about to check if > > > this is just from some publically available census data like census > > > 2000. > > > > > > Also, > > > > > > http://clerk.ci.seattle.wa.us/~public/nmaps/fullcit2.htm > > <http://clerk.ci.seattle.wa.us/%7Epublic/nmaps/fullcit2.htm> > > > > > > And > > > > > > http://transit.metrokc.gov/tops/bus/neighborhoods/region_text.html > > > > > > But generally speaking is there something comprehensive for the entire > > > > > United States? > > > > > > - a > > > _______________________________________________ > > > Geowanking mailing list > > > [email protected] > > > http://lists.burri.to/mailman/listinfo/geowanking > > > > _______________________________________________ > > Geowanking mailing list > > [email protected] > > http://lists.burri.to/mailman/listinfo/geowanking > > > > > > -- > Ian White :: Urban Mapping, Inc. > 690 Fifth Street Suite 200 :: San Francisco CA 94107 > T.415.946.8170 :: F.866.385.8266 :: urbanmapping.com > _______________________________________________ > Geowanking mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.burri.to/mailman/listinfo/geowanking > >
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