introduction + municipal FOI

[Daniel Haran]

Hello,

I guess this is a good time to introduce myself. Thanks to the
organizers for setting this list up!

My name's Daniel, and I'm currently living in Halifax, Nova Scotia. In
a previous career, I was a programmer.

Over the past few months, I have been pursuing a Freedom of
Information appeal to have my city release Shapefiles for its
electoral boundaries. The appeal's review officer recently recommended
the city make these available, and I posted scans of their decision,
my appeal and review letter. All the links were blogged here:
http://www.livejournal.com/users/danieljohn/61897.html

The whole process was drawn-out, and cost me $50. I would encourage
anyone to ask their city if their electoral boundaries are available-
and if not, to put up a fuss.

Cheers,

Daniel.

[Tracey P. Lauriault-2]

Bravo Daniel!

Daniel Haran wrote:

>Hello,
>
>I guess this is a good time to introduce myself. Thanks to the
>organizers for setting this list up!
>
>My name's Daniel, and I'm currently living in Halifax, Nova Scotia. In
>a previous career, I was a programmer.
>
>Over the past few months, I have been pursuing a Freedom of
>Information appeal to have my city release Shapefiles for its
>electoral boundaries. The appeal's review officer recently recommended
>the city make these available, and I posted scans of their decision,
>my appeal and review letter. All the links were blogged here:
>http://www.livejournal.com/users/danieljohn/61897.html
>
>The whole process was drawn-out, and cost me $50. I would encourage
>anyone to ask their city if their electoral boundaries are available-
>and if not, to put up a fuss.
>
>Cheers,
>
>Daniel.
>
>_______________________________________________
>CivicAccess-discuss mailing list
>[hidden email]
>http://civicaccess.ca/mailman/listinfo/civicaccess-discuss_civicaccess.ca
>
>  
>

[Michael Lenczner]

hey daniel - could you tell us what you wanted to do with these files?
 and what are shape files for those of us who aren't gis guys?

in the mean time i'm going to go check out the events on your blog.


On 1/16/06, Daniel Haran <[hidden email]> wrote:

> Hello,
>
> I guess this is a good time to introduce myself. Thanks to the
> organizers for setting this list up!
>
> My name's Daniel, and I'm currently living in Halifax, Nova Scotia. In
> a previous career, I was a programmer.
>
> Over the past few months, I have been pursuing a Freedom of
> Information appeal to have my city release Shapefiles for its
> electoral boundaries. The appeal's review officer recently recommended
> the city make these available, and I posted scans of their decision,
> my appeal and review letter. All the links were blogged here:
> http://www.livejournal.com/users/danieljohn/61897.html
>
> The whole process was drawn-out, and cost me $50. I would encourage
> anyone to ask their city if their electoral boundaries are available-
> and if not, to put up a fuss.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Daniel.
>
> _______________________________________________
> CivicAccess-discuss mailing list
> [hidden email]
> http://civicaccess.ca/mailman/listinfo/civicaccess-discuss_civicaccess.ca
>

[Daniel Haran]

Hi,

On 1/16/06, Michael Lenczner <[hidden email]> wrote:
> hey daniel - could you tell us what you wanted to do with these files?
>  and what are shape files for those of us who aren't gis guys?
>
> in the mean time i'm going to go check out the events on your blog.
>

There's a long-ish explanation as to what shapefiles are in the appeal
letter I sent, linked from that blog entry. I'll try to make it more
concise.

A shapefile is a storage format for points, lines and shapes with
associated attributes (name and type of place, boundary type, etc).
Points are specified by longitude and latitude; lines and shapes are
composed of many points.  Software used in Geographic Information
Systems (GIS) can read these files and compute spatial relations. The
shapes for federal ridings is made available for free in the form of
shapefiles, and can be used by a GIS for mapping and (much!) more.

My first objective was to have a web-based interface that let people
enter their address or postal code, and have it return their
councillor. Assuming you can determine an address' longitude and
latitude (known as "geocoding"), a GIS can tell you which shape
contains it.

The second objective is more ambitious: to let advocacy organizations
determine who the councillor is for any given member address. I want
an organization to be able to express this type of request from their
member database:

"Show me all members
who have expressed concern about 'green spaces'
and who are in district 3, 4 or 6"

There are more advanced uses that could be made from these shapefiles
and other data. A GIS can help answer all sorts of interesting
questions dealing with spatial relations. How many people are within a
10 minute walk to a bus stop, park, school, pub, grocery store or
bank? We can analyze through demographics, crime and other data sets
that are geographically annotated.

Perhaps the best part of doing it with this type of technology is that
this software could be re-used for any city which made its shapefiles
public and for which a geocoding service exists.

If I haven't bored you all to tears, are there any more questions? :-)

Daniel.

[Hugh McGuire]

so funny, when I saw the first post about shapefiles, i said, that's
pretty ... um...specific?

now i get it - very powerful tools you are thinking of. very useful.

so there's a wider movement here which is to tell govt: give us the data
for free and we--the hackers--will improve civic discourse. and make
your job as an (ideal) government easier.  this has been my feeling,
that if you get this data to the public, and out of the hands of the
consultants, you will end up with much more elegant solutions for any
number of problems.

h.



Daniel Haran wrote:

> Hi,
>
> On 1/16/06, Michael Lenczner <[hidden email]> wrote:
>
>>hey daniel - could you tell us what you wanted to do with these files?
>> and what are shape files for those of us who aren't gis guys?
>>
>>in the mean time i'm going to go check out the events on your blog.
>>
>
>
> There's a long-ish explanation as to what shapefiles are in the appeal
> letter I sent, linked from that blog entry. I'll try to make it more
> concise.
>
> A shapefile is a storage format for points, lines and shapes with
> associated attributes (name and type of place, boundary type, etc).
> Points are specified by longitude and latitude; lines and shapes are
> composed of many points.  Software used in Geographic Information
> Systems (GIS) can read these files and compute spatial relations. The
> shapes for federal ridings is made available for free in the form of
> shapefiles, and can be used by a GIS for mapping and (much!) more.
>
> My first objective was to have a web-based interface that let people
> enter their address or postal code, and have it return their
> councillor. Assuming you can determine an address' longitude and
> latitude (known as "geocoding"), a GIS can tell you which shape
> contains it.
>
> The second objective is more ambitious: to let advocacy organizations
> determine who the councillor is for any given member address. I want
> an organization to be able to express this type of request from their
> member database:
>
> "Show me all members
> who have expressed concern about 'green spaces'
> and who are in district 3, 4 or 6"
>
> There are more advanced uses that could be made from these shapefiles
> and other data. A GIS can help answer all sorts of interesting
> questions dealing with spatial relations. How many people are within a
> 10 minute walk to a bus stop, park, school, pub, grocery store or
> bank? We can analyze through demographics, crime and other data sets
> that are geographically annotated.
>
> Perhaps the best part of doing it with this type of technology is that
> this software could be re-used for any city which made its shapefiles
> public and for which a geocoding service exists.
>
> If I haven't bored you all to tears, are there any more questions? :-)
>
> Daniel.
>
> _______________________________________________
> CivicAccess-discuss mailing list
> [hidden email]
> http://civicaccess.ca/mailman/listinfo/civicaccess-discuss_civicaccess.ca
>