Comments on: Mapping council wards against public statistics

By: I draw people

I draw people — Mon, 09 May 2011 02:16:03 +0000

Agree completely, kudos to the decision to open up the data and make it available. Very helpful for many!

By: Grappling with Google maps: Creating a ward map of Cardiff « How to microblog in high heels

Tue, 07 Dec 2010 13:14:51 +0000

[...] Reason is – ward data wasn’t really available until April this year, according to this post by Michael Grimes – so no wonder it’s not really [...]

By: Gavin Wray

Gavin Wray — Tue, 25 May 2010 11:32:28 +0000

Good writeup Michael.

I thought it’d be worth mentioning where we got the data from. We looked at two main sources for ward-level data:

OpenlyLocal.com - here’s the source we used for St Matthew’s ward in Walsall

neighbourhood.statistics.gov.uk - the official data from the Office for National Statistics. Here are the datasets for St Matthew’s

By: We know where we are, and is that about all? - jon bounds

We know where we are, and is that about all? - jon bounds — Tue, 25 May 2010 11:19:40 +0000

[...] that the Ordinance Survey released for use recently. At at Andrew McKenzie’s Mapitude event in Birmingham the attendees worked on a Ward Comparison site that plotted the boundaries of Walsall Council wards automatically on Google [...]

By: Michael

Michael — Tue, 25 May 2010 11:11:42 +0000

Stuart Harrison has now also blogged an account of this work: http://www.pezholio.co.uk/2010/05/ringing-mapping-the-changes/

By: Michael

Michael — Tue, 25 May 2010 11:09:05 +0000

Thank you both! Although the credit should really go to Stuart and the others.

Feargal, that’s really interesting; how is the data presented? I know very little about mapping, and I’m not a programmer, but one of the things I want to look at (when I have a chance) is how to make it easy for people to create their own compatible datasets that can then be layered over other data in third-party tools. Or would it be as simple as drawing them on Google Maps and exporting the data..?

By: Feargal Hogan

Feargal Hogan — Tue, 25 May 2010 09:57:46 +0000

I agree with Angus. This is fabulous geography.

I’ve been working with the same datasets, although just looking at my own local area, and since I’ve started I’ve come across even more interesting boundary data, such as the ecclesiastical boundaries and charity area-of-benefit boundaries.

It would be great to have a tool like this available for public use.

Well done!

By: Angus Willson

Angus Willson — Tue, 25 May 2010 09:37:11 +0000

This is wonderful geography, Michael.

Opening up this data with easily accessible tools will be very effective in helping people understand the communities in which they live and work at a very local level.

Far too much place-making is based on impressionistic assessment on the one hand and data-sets with artificially fixed boundaries on the other.

I would argue that to become ‘more democratic’ in decision-making may be messier (or more complex) but it will be better informed.