Volume 11: This Week in Civic Tech/Open DataThis week is a short one. A lot of tweets though :) Visualizations London Arts Map The collated data on the capital’s cultural locations is hoped to support local authorities, property developers and associations develop existing clusters and build creative infrastructure This map is a great start and typically for these kind of maps, where you throw a lot of data at the user. The clusters are a good way to convey the right amount of information.➦

Child Care Cost: Bay AreaIn Volume 4 of my weekly roundup, I stumbled across this exciting dataset about Childcare cost in the bay area. Here is the graphic that I looked at: I thought this visualization could be improved to bring the point across more clearly. A slope chart would be a great option. A slope graph can be used to show a ‘before and after’ story of different values, based on comparing their values at different points in time.➦

Volume 10: This Week in Civic Tech/Open DataThis Week was a slow week for visualizations, but we have a lot of tweets of what folks talked about in Civic Tech. And the Shifting Neighborhoods story makes up for it, because it is so great. Visualizations SHIFTING NEIGHBORHOODS Gentrification and cultural displacement in American cities This report is sad but very well made. It looks at census tracts and their development over time and calculates if they are gentrified and if there is a social displacement happening as well.➦

Volume 9: This Week in Civic Tech/Open DataNot much was going on last week, so this roundup will be short and include some more data-driven journalism. The Baltimore Sun is busy producing data-driven stories, and I love that they share their process and code. The National Geographic is known for beautiful visualizations, and they show it off again :) Visualizations The Shape of cities A TALE OF FIVE CITIES AND HOW THEY GREW Rail, roads, and real estate play a role in the physical shape of cities.➦

What should be included with a mapMaps are a great way to visualize data that has a spatial component, and I love creating maps. There are a few things though that you should keep in mind when creating maps. These tips will help your readers to understand your map better and help you remember when and why you created the map. Most of the time there are two kinds of maps: static maps and interactive maps.➦

Volume 8: This Week in Civic Tech/Open DataVisualizations Syracuse Snow Map What I love about this project is this comprehensive writeup of how they built it: http://www.innovatesyracuse.com/blog/snowplowmapdevelopment And everything is Open Source on GitHub available for everyone to check out the code or reimplement it. It would be great if they included the link to the explanation on the map somewhere. The colors, especially the one for “Not yet plowed” does not work great with the basemap.➦

Toronto High Rise Building inspectionIn Volume 6 of my weekly roundup I highlighted some newly released data from the city of Toronto about Highrisers Building Inspection data. The newspaper that reported about it was not happy about the format that it was available. And I agree it is not very searchable or does not provide too much information. But: They use an API to show the data in the table. And it turns out, I can use the API as well.➦

Volume 7: This Week in Civic Tech/Open DataThis week seem to be a slow week in visualizations and articles. But still, there were some interesting pieces. They mostly relate to transit but all cover different angles. We have Subway desserts in NY, runner data displaying segregation in Baltimore and a new way to visualize transit trips. Next week will include all the awesome things that happened on Saturday, March 2nd around the world on Open Data Day!➦

Volume 6: This Week in Civic Tech/Open DataThis week we have more articles than usual from newspapers using data-driven journalism. I really like that part of journalism and hope that more newspapers go that route. Especially the ones that publish their analysis so it can be reproduced or other newspapers can adapt it for their city. Visualizations Chicago Middle-class is shrinking. WBEZ Radio Chicago uses data and graphs from the Nathalie P. Voorhees Center for Neighborhood and Community Improvement at the University of Illinois at Chicago to produce an article with the title: “The Middle Class Is Shrinking Everywhere — In Chicago It’s Almost Gone”➦

Volume 5: This Week in Civic Tech/Open DataThis week is heavy on visualisations and maps again. Lot’s of interesting things were released last week. Visualizations Fighting Opioid Misuse by Monitoring Community Health This is a cool project by the City of Tempe, AZ using ArcGIS storymap and dashboard to explain opioids in wastewater collection. If you only look at the dashboard, it is not immediately obvious why only three areas have graphs, and three don‘t. But if you read the story map, it will be explained.➦