Help develop the plan for NYC government to unlock its data
NYC Open Data Policy Hack Day Saturday, May 19, 2012 at 11:00 AM (ET) REGISTER HERE
NYC recently enacted Local Law 11 of 2012, which mandates citywide open data in machine-readable formats through a centralized, publicly accessible web site. The NYC Open Data portal was launched in late 2011 to meet this need. The legislation additionally mandates the creation of technical standards in support of this initiative.
Join NYC DoITT’s team from the Office of Strategic Technology Development and the open government community – policymakers, technologists, civic hackers, app developers, academics, journalists and data enthusiasts – for an engaging day of discussions, drafting, planning and hacking.
Don’t wait until the event: collaborate on NYC’s Open Data Policies, Technical Standards, and Guidelines wiki now.
Yesterday, Mayor Bloomberg signed into law what he termed “the most ambitious and comprehensive open data legislation in the country.”
The Mayor remarked:
“If we’re going to continue leading the country in innovation and transparency, we’re going to have to make sure that all New Yorkers have access to the data that drives our City. Across City government, agencies use data to develop policy, implement programs, and track performance — and each month, our Administration shares more and more of this data with the public at large, catalyzing the creativity, intellect, and enterprising spirit of computer programmers to build tools that help us all improve our lives.”
Read more on NYC.gov
Adventures (in code) - Alastair Coote: Think all government data is boring? Think again: a showcase of location data you want to use.
Great post by one of our Reinvent NYC.gov Hackathon winners, Alastair Coote:
There’s a ton of government data out there- you probably already know that. But it’s no good to you, right? Education statistics, financial reports… very important stuff, of course, but kind of… dry. Not exactly “every day use” sort of stuff.
Well, I’m going to try to challenge that perception a little. I signed up for a contest called NYC BigApps, which is a city-run competition to encourage use of city data. I was pleasantly surprised by the data I found. So, I thought that for a little bit of Friday fun I’d run through some of the more interesting and unexpected geo datasets. At the end, I’m going to discuss how I’m using NYC open data in my BigApps entry, Taxonomy.
The embedded maps you see are provided by CartoDB, which rocks. Seriously, go check it out. Each of the markers are clickable, giving you a sample of what data is available. The data, of course, comes from the NYC Open Data web site. I’m sure other cities have similar data out there- and if they don’t, urge them to release it.
WiFi hotspots
An absolute no-brainer, this one. Everyone needs a WiFi connection every now and then, and this dataset shows you their locations, and whether they are free or paid (in the map above, green is free, orange is paid). The world is crying out for ratemywifi.com - how’s the connection speed? Does the guy behind the counter get angry when you only order one small coffee every four hours? Do you get a cool IP address or some lame 192.168 handout? What’s the hacker to amateur novelist ratio? Surely a billion dollar IPO awaits.
Filming Locations
File this one under “I never even thought of this before”. A ton of stuff gets filmed in New York every year, and of course permits need to be approved before the cameras can roll. It turns out that the New York government has made that data public, going all the way back to the 60’s and before. Maybe next time your friends visit you can assemble a walking tour of your favourite movies. Fun fact: NYC BigApps entry Scene Near Me uses this data to text you when you check in near a filming location.
Public Bathroom Locations
OK, OK, this isn’t exactly the sexiest dataset going, but don’t try to tell me you wouldn’t use it. Whether you’re in Central Park or just out shopping, no-one wants to buy a coffee just so that you can go to the bathroom- it’s only going to make you need to go again in half an hour. Never was there a greater resource for the public good - bathroo.my, anyone?
Parking Locations
I don’t own a car, but I’ve heard they’re quite popular. I also heard at the BMW iVentures launch partythat parking in the city is an utterly miserable experience. So it was pleasing to see that the city has an open directory of parking garages, even including the number of parking spots in each one. As you may be able to tell from the map above, there are quite a few.
How I’m using NYC Open Data
As I said at the start of the post, I’ve used NYC Open Data myself, in my NYC BigApps entry. One sits at the heart of the app- it’s the taxi driver dataset. I use it to allow Taxonomy users to review their taxi driver- the idea is that over time we collect feedback on the best and worst drivers, as well as tracking which ones take the most efficient routes, and which ones don’t know their way around.
I made another- more fun- data mashup, though. I wanted the map in my app to be dark rather than the usual Google Maps bright and bold, so I made custom map tiles. As part of that process, I used the following datasets:
- Building Perimeter Outlines
- Street Centerline
- Roadbed
(from the NYC DoITT GIS downloads section) to create the higher zoom-level maps. I’m very happy with the way they turned out, and I’d encourage you to give them a try next time you’re making a map-based app or site:
Taxonomy is available in the App Store, and even has a web site for you to find out more.
Welcome to the NYC Open Data Tumblr
As part of Mayor Bloomberg’s commitment to transparency and innovation, over 800 (and counting!) City datasets are now online for anyone in New York or around the world to explore and access via an API, for deeper, real-time integration into apps and websites.
NYC Open Data brings you:
· City datasets about everything from school test scores to campaign contributions;
· Documents such as the green project checklists
· Maps utilizing GIS data showcasing many different sites of interest ranging from public handball courts to street trees
· Charts and graphs created dynamically from datasets, such as “Percentage of People Residing in a School District who Receive Public Assistance” and “Birth Rate by Mother’s Age”
· File export options including CSV, JSON, PDF, RDF, RSS, XLS, XLSX, XML in addition to API access and the ability to embed a dataset on blogs or social media platform.
We will be frequently updating this Tumblr with interesting data visualizations and news about hackathons and apps that use NYC Open Data. We would love to hear your feedback and suggestions.
