Community Improvement & Capacity Building

Mapnificent is a mapping application that shows how far you can go from a certain point in a certain time using public transit.  For example, you can enter your workplace location and see everywhere in your city that you could live to ensure a maximum 30 minute commute to work.  Or, you could find every park within a 20-minute transit ride from your house.  

Because it depends on public transit data encoded using Google's open data standard for transit info, the Transit Feed Specification, it's only available for certain cities.  It's a follow-up to the Mapumental site, a UK version which has been in closed beta for quite a while.  You can learn more about the technology behind Mapnificent in a blog article by the creator.

The Illinois Network of Centers for Independent Living is a statewide coalition of the 23 regional centers for independent living (CIL) that serve Illinoisans with disabilities.  CILs promote full and equal access to our communities for those residents and visitors with disabilities.  The mission of INCIL is to help these regional centers share resources and collaborate on statewide issues such as funding and advocacy.

Mark Belinsky of Digital Democracy wrote an article called Future Now: NYC’s Digital Storybook  - it's about his experience working with students in New York City on a webmapping demonstration project.  The students used a modified version of Ushahidi software to map ideas and resources in their community.  You can check out the resulting web map as well, but Mark's article includes some great background information and analysis.

The Global Action Atlas, a new online portal from National Geographic, allows visitors to explore environmental, humanitarian, and cultural projects around the world with an interactive map interface.  The site integrates social networking and provides a pathway for recruiting advocates, donors, and volunteers.  Well beyond sticking pushpins on a map, this portal aims to  "connect people and planet."

Zachary Johnson, the cartographer/geographer behind IndieMaps.com, wrote up a fascinating bio/review of William Bunge, a prominent social geographer from the times before mashups and slippy maps.  The images in this post are excerpted from the Bunge-created maps on IndieMaps.com and I believe they all first appeared in Wiliam Bunge's "Fitzgerald: Geography of a Revolution," 1971, Schenkman Pub. Co.