lat long coordinates from google maps

When the place you want the latitude and longitude for is centered (default for search results), copy and paste this into your browser bar: javascript:alert(gApplication.getMap().getCenter()) A window with the lat long will pop up. I use this often to fill in data for unmatched addresses after batchgeocoding.

Measuring Your Food Environment

This site is related to the work Ellen and I are working on with Barbara Laraia and Irene Yen at UCSF. We are mapping the food environment for a study collaborating with Kaiser examining obesity and diabetes rates.  This is a new-ish field, with lots of new and exciting methods being developed to map access to "good" and "bad" food.  The National Cancer Institute has developed a site that collects many of these approaches.

FANTASTIC Bay Area spatial data

  If you love detailed spatial data and/or the bay area, I HIGHLY recommend downloading and exploring the readily available Upland Goals Project Data . Ryan Branciforte introduced  it to us last week during his enlightening geolunch presentation about his work with the Bay Area Open Space Council. There is a wealth of data for all interests, including vegetation, animals, environmental features, weather patterns, fire risk, and even camp sites if you want to plan a trip to go look at all the data on the ground.

Access private data at the UC Berkeley Census Research Data Center

Kevin and I went to a talk this week and found out about a very under-utilized resource on campus, the Research Data Center (RDC). It is one of only 9 RDCs in the U.S., and it is the only location where you can access non-public demographic, health, and economic data that contain detailed information on geographic location and/or other characteristics about firms or households. For an overview of all the confidential data you can seek access to,  look over the CRDC's data page, and specific details about each can be found at the Center for Economic Studies Data Page. The application process is described as "rigorous and lengthy", but the people at the center seem very friendly and eager to help more researchers use their data. For a list of other data resources on campus, check out the UC Data resources page.

Global disease alert map

Here is yet another exciting use of the GoolgeMaps API.... HealthMap aggregates outbreak data by disease from numerous sources (news, personal accounts, and official alerts) and displays them by location in real-time. It's a collaborative project brought together by the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology. If you're not a germaphobe now, you may become one after taking a look at the map; be sure to check it out before your next international trip or even if you stay around here. For example, did you know that the West Nile Virus has infected 78 people in California this year? Even closer to home, there was a TB scare at Kaiser in SF last week.

Oakland Crimespotting Folks Talking Today

The folks behind the excellent Oakland Crimespotting are giving a talk today at the iSchool. If you haven't seen the site, it shows crime data from Oakland on a map, with different icons for different types of crime, and allowing you to browse through time using a sliding, expandable window over a bar graph. Pretty sweet use of Flash. Here's the talk info:

Design Futures lecture series sponsored by the Berkeley Center for New Media and the UC Berkeley School of Information TODAY Thursday March 20 5:15-6:30pm 110 South Hall UC Berkeley Mike Migurski and Tom Carden, Stamen Design Visual Urban Data: A Journey Through Oakland Crimespotting A talk about the political, social and technical hiccoughs encountered since the inception of Stamen Design’s Oakland Crimespotting project just over a year ago. The talk will cover the inspirations and influences of the project, and how it relates to Stamen’s recent work in web-based information visualization and mapping. About Stamen Since 2001, Stamen has developed a reputation for beautiful and technologically sophisticated projects in a diverse range of commercial and cultural settings. They work and play with a surprising and growing range of collaborators: news media, financial institutions, artists and architects, car manufacturers, design agencies, museums, technology firms, political action committes, and universities.

Berkeley/Penn Urban and Environmental Modeler’s Datakit

Looking for GIS data for the U.S.? The Berkeley/Penn Urban and Environmental Modeler's Datakit has just been released. The site contains more than 150 downloadable ArcMap-ready shapefiles and raster datasets for the 48 contiguous United States.

The data were produced at the Institute of Urban and Regional Development (IURD) at the University of California, Berkeley and the Penn Institute of Urban Research (Penn IUR) at the University of Pennsylvania, in cooperation with Penn's Cartographic Modeling Lab (CML).

The data is free, and all interested urban and environmental planners, analysts, modelers and enthusiasts are encouraged to utilize the site to further narrow traditional disciplinary gaps between urban and environmental planning researchers/practitioners. It claims to be the first site to bring together spatially comprehensive and comparable urban and environmental GIS data.

Users who uncover problems (other than the fact that "Modeler" is mis-spelled on the title banner) or might wish to add their own national data to the website should e-mail John Landis at jlan@design.upenn.edu.

Our Space category

I am adding a new category for postings that are relevant to the Our Space project. Right now, we are particularly interested in any topics regarding mapping behavior and accessibility. Walk Score utilizes Google Maps to calculate a neighborhood walkability index. Such an index could also be used as a measure of access.