Geo experts - Minnesota street addresses, Google Maps API, etc.

Anyone have suggestions on local experts on this "geo" online?

I have a nugget of an idea for "E-Townships" and "E-Blocks" that would
allow someone to plunk in their address and essentially opt-into a
residents-only social network of the 100 or so households closest to
them. So in the rural areas it would cover lots of territory but still
be "your neighbors" while in the urban context it would be about a
block or two in every direction.

This level of "public life" would need to be restricted to actual
neighbors (you don't want this kind of exchange in Google) but it
could of course be designed to tie in with our very public community
and neighborhood level Issues Forums.

This means I'd need both a database of Minnesota street/civic
addresses, perhaps white page/voter registration file data for some
minor identity verification, as well as the longitude and latitude of
specific addresses. I understand with the Google API you can look up
5,000 long/lats a day.

Who might be able to help guide this idea or provide elementary data
access suggestions?

Rest of post

I would say voter registration data won't give sufficient data on
addresses and white page data is probably costly to find an API. USPS
only allows use of their API for shipping purposes. I think the
alternative would be to use City Assessor data. I'm in the process of
attempting to obtain that for an open government project and it's a
bit of a challenge convincing them that it's not for commercial use.
This data would have every single address and the benefits of knowing
if those addresses are single family homes, apartment buildings, etc.

For verification purposes, a combination of City Assessor data (which
may or may not have the taxpayer name) and voter registration might
work.

Tony Webster
Loring Park

On Wed, Dec 2, 2009 at 8:41 AM, Steven Clift <<email obscured>> wrote:
> Anyone have suggestions on local experts on this "geo" online?
>
> I have a nugget of an idea for "E-Townships" and "E-Blocks" that would
> allow someone to plunk in their address and essentially opt-into a
> residents-only social network of the 100 or so households closest to
> them. So in the rural areas it would cover lots of territory but still
> be "your neighbors" while in the urban context it would be about a
> block or two in every direction.
>
> This level of "public life" would need to be restricted to actual
> neighbors (you don't want this kind of exchange in Google) but it
> could of course be designed to tie in with our very public community
> and neighborhood level Issues Forums.
>
> This means I'd need both a database of Minnesota street/civic
> addresses, perhaps white page/voter registration file data for some
> minor identity verification, as well as the longitude and latitude of
> specific addresses. I understand with the Google API you can look up
> 5,000 long/lats a day.
>
> Who might be able to help guide this idea or provide elementary data
> access suggestions?
>
> --
> Steven Clift - http://stevenclift.com
> Executive Director - http://E-Democracy.Org
> Follow me - http://twitter.com/democracy
> New Tel: +1.612.234.7072
>
> Steven Clift
> Ericsson, Minneapolis
> Info about Steven Clift: http://forums.e-democracy.org/p/stevenclift
>
> View all messages on this topic at:
http://forums.e-democracy.org/r/topic/51SNhTFKnz6FbXkYFaBnBv

Rest of post

I think there are two ways to do this and I'm leaning towards the second.

1.) Define e-blocks on actual physical neighborhood blocks, determine which
neighborhood block a person lives in and associate them with that e-block

2.) Define e-block as unique to each individual, as all the houses that fall
within a radius of some defined distance (1/16th a mile?) with that individual
at the center of the radius.

Good thing about #2 is the distance calculations and figuring out a person's
eblock neighbors is fast, easy and based strictly on lat/lng (as geocoded by
from their address). If google has a 5000 lookups / day limit I never saw them
enforce it when I geocoded 2 million world wide addresses in 2007. They may
have changed policies since then.

The other good thing about number two is it defines you as the center of your
neighborhood. That means you dont have any artificial neighborhood border
issues (where you leave on the edge and consider the people across the street
your neighbor but alas, they fall outside the 'predefined' neighborhood).

Also - with this idea you can customize the radius based on population density
(or even results returned...) so maybe you dont have many people participating
at your block level, so the radius is bumped to 1/2 mile and that is your new
neighborhood (for now). Then after some time, more people signup much closer
to you, the system figures out it can reduce the size of the radius down to
1/8th a mile ... or something.

Just some thoughts.

Casey

Interesting discussion and idea...I think the idea of defining your
neighborhood as a radius around your address is a really good start. As far as
getting the addresses, the best be would be going through the county to get tax
records if at all possible. You can get tax information piecemeal online from
some individual counties and some are available through portals such as:
http://guidepost.schneidercorp.com/Default.aspx Otherwise platbooks contain tax
information.

The geocode limit for Google is 15,000, but there are exceptions, see:
http://code.google.com/apis/maps/faq.html#geocoder_limit

Thanks everyone.

Casey's number 2 route would be the default for opting into a
"Neighbors Directory" of sorts. Folks whose geo-based public exposure
distance overlaps would be able to see each other and interact based
on the rules of the system.

But ultimately to attract "everyday" users to an electronic block club
system, you need to scratch someone's itch. Based on input I've
gathered over time, I view "block captains" and their
communication/informing needs as the ideal customer for such a
service. In our public neighborhood Issues Forums I run into lots of
folks who are the informal hubs of their block (which often means they
help organize for National Night Out) whether or not they are formally
recognized/recruited by the community policing efforts. Most of these
folks are not tech savvy although some blocks have had private
YahooGroups for years and some now use private Facebook Groups and the
like. However, there is no support/how-to mechanism.

So in this case, to serve a block captain who could use a tool (that
allows greater top-down definition of the area more precisely
included) to transfer their bcc: e-mail list and organize data from
typically print-designed sheets that list everyone willing to sign up
on by house number over a block or two. However this is pretty boring
e-blocks were not designed to be interactive in a social networking
sort of way. So in addition to sharing "My garage was broken into last
night" or "Sure was busy last night at the crack house on our street"
crime related notes, I'd be interested in tool sharing (I'm renting a
tiller for the garden anyone want to join in), social/National Night
out style event organizing, even babysitting swapping or simply things
that help neighbors get to know each other while not feeling over
exposed.

My sense is that will 10% of household on the very public Standish
Ericsson Neighbors forum and no reason we can't grow to 20% and what I
know about the existing micro-efforts, you would likely get 50%
household participation where there is a "leader" and far less (1-5%)
where growth would have to come from wide outreach until such point
when someone with some recruiting interest jumps in. 5% is still OK
when you also connect that organically to more public
neighborhood/commuity Issues Forums across more areas because there
will still be a place for exchange that people find useful.

Your thoughts?

I am interested if this would work in a rural township, although my
Aunt near remote Tamarack, MN said to me ... that sounds like what we
already do on the telephone or with afternoon drives over the the
neighbors farm/place for coffee.

Cheers,
Steven Clift

Rest of post

Cyclopath.org (a bike router) is developed by a mapping group at the U:
http://cyclopath.org/wiki/Thanks -- and I heard Loren Terveen
(http://www-users.cs.umn.edu/~terveen/) is thinking about something with
connecting parents geographically.

Gathering the necessary data is non-trivial (e.g., things like neighborhood
boundaries), so they might be able to help you find the right people locally
that have the appropriate data.

Ad Labs (local, Drupal developers) is working on geo tools that can do all this
and more. They're committed to open source development - good people, who
should be included in this conversation. http://www.advantagelabs.com/

Thanks for the hook-up:
http://www.advantagelabs.com/geospatial-development

I was aware of their online group/e-mail hook work for the Center for
Victims of Torture's New Tactics site - http://www.newtactics.org -
years back. Any suggestions on the specific folks to check-in with?

Steve

Rest of post

At the Hackathon on Saturday about 30 people came through our part of the
event. In the morning we did a big meet and greet and in the afternoon, 8 of
us dug into an idea that seemed to stand out ... the one related to this
topic.

We have a technically oriented online group forming here:

Http://forums.e-democracy.org/groups/neighborly

The general idea is a tool that helps you connect more privately online with
your nearest neighbors be it the 100 households on the four blocks closest
to you or the 100 closest farms/rural residence scatter over a couple square
miles. And more.

The key data need to find the best data sources for addresses from
governments (I would guess) and ideally with longitute/latitude (we can use
the Google Maps API to approximate along the way as needed). Where should we
start? Is there a statewide source or are we talking city/county by
city/county?

Suggestions?

Steven Clift

Steven Clift
http://stevenclift.com
@democracy

On Dec 3, 2009 5:44 PM, "Steven Clift" <<email obscured>> wrote:

Thanks for the hook-up:
http://www.advantagelabs.com/geospatial-development

I was aware of their online group/e-mail hook work for the Center for
Victims of Torture's New Tactics site - http://www.newtactics.org -
years back. Any suggestions on the specific folks to check-in with?

Steve

On 12/3/09, <email obscured> <<email obscured>> wrote: > Ad
Labs (local, Drupal dev...

Rest of post

Steve,

Have you talked to any mail list brokers? I understand that they can get
addresses with the coordinates. So If I want addresses from a circle of x
radius around a key address, they can do that (as I understood, last time
I went after a list.)

A local broker I talked to is Dianna O'Brien at ListVision, Inc.
612-789-4100, www.listvision, <email obscured>. She was very helpful
for me.

Rest of post

Val

> At the Hackathon on Saturday about 30 people came through our part of the
> event. In the morning we did a big meet and greet and in the afternoon, 8
> of
> us dug into an idea that seemed to stand out ... the one related to this
> topic.
>
> We have a technically oriented online group forming here:
>
> Http://forums.e-democracy.org/groups/neighborly
>
> The general idea is a tool that helps you connect more privately online
> with
> your nearest neighbors be it the 100 households on the four blocks closest
> to you or the 100 closest farms/rural residence scatter over a couple
> square
> miles. And more.
>
> The key data need to find the best data sources for addresses from
> governments (I would guess) and ideally with longitute/latitude (we can
> use
> the Google Maps API to approximate along the way as needed). Where should
> we
> start? Is there a statewide source or are we talking city/county by
> city/county?
>
> Suggestions?
>
> Steven Clift
>
> Steven Clift
> http://stevenclift.com
> @democracy
>
> On Dec 3, 2009 5:44 PM, "Steven Clift" <<email obscured>> wrote:
>
> Thanks for the hook-up:
> http://www.advantagelabs.com/geospatial-development
>
> I was aware of their online group/e-mail hook work for the Center for
> Victims of Torture's New Tactics site - http://www.newtactics.org -
> years back. Any suggestions on the specific folks to check-in with?
>
> Steve
>
> On 12/3/09, <email obscured> <<email obscured>> wrote: >
> Ad
> Labs (local, Drupal dev...
> --
> Steven Clift - http://stevenclift.com
> Executive Director - http://E-Democracy.Org
> Follow me - http://twitter.com/democracy
> New Tel: +1.612.234.7072
>
> Steven Clift
> Ericsson, Minneapolis
> Info about Steven Clift: http://forums.e-democracy.org/p/stevenclift
>
> View all messages on this topic at:
> http://forums.e-democracy.org/r/topic/4pLJ8zngt5KCJiMMVptXHv
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