Any of you use map layering for p2p urbanism open collaboration projects ?

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Dante-Gabryell Monson

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Dec 27, 2010, 10:12:01 PM12/27/10
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I sent the following question ( below ) to this list

list which is related to this approach


note : I realize that late at night I m not very careful at rechecking my spelling 

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Dante-Gabryell Monson <dante....@gmail.com>
Date: Tue, Dec 28, 2010 at 3:58 AM
Subject: Any of you use map layering for p2p urbanism open collaboration projects ?
To: p2p-urbanism...@googlegroups.com


Hi to all on this list,

I want to put forward and ask some technical questions which I believe are pretty practical,
to facilitate collaboration for citizen participation in city (re)development.

It involves map layerings,
and I wondered if some of you may be aware
of certain tools I may not be aware of yet, so I could use them ?

Or if they do not exist, how difficult would it be to create them ?

My background is that of a netroots hitch hiking nomad who is interested in setting up some physical resilient living space base.

Here goes for the question / suggestion :

The starting point is a personal project which I choose to be in Leipzig, Germany.
There are vacant buildings ( about one fifth of all buildings ? ),
which makes some of these buildings more affordable then other cities.
Hence, I'd like to use it as an experimental space to set up a local network economy,
with not for loss/not for financial profit/use value
and p2p cooperative principles, building up on peer property, governance and production.

The is one of the wiki pages me and some other friends use to brainstorm :


Enough friends offered to buy shares as to guarantee the purchase of a first building.
Now, the challenge is to be able to use all data and , based on needs for projects, select the ideal area and choose the ideal first building to start the project.

Now that Google Street View is available for some cities in germany, such as Berlin or Leipzig, it also makes it easier to show to potential investors , and further increase participation online.

I wondered how difficult it would be to enable automatic KML layering,
after doing a specific research, such as buildings in Leipzig ( according to price or size criteria for example ) from data such as


( a company that inherited from the formaly east german housing cooperative )

This would be very useful, to choose, then view directly with Google Street View, buildings of interest for me and friends to invest in, while collaboratively compiling important data about the buildings, the neighbourhood,

by eventually enabling additional connections to every points on the layer for open comments or linking to wiki pages ?

Enabling each point on a KML layering to have some kind of URI ?

Or even enabler social networks ( people login from facebook, or enable a direct link map that can be added to identica and twitter, and serve as a tag for other interested twitter users... ? )

Hence enabling emergent collaboration for the redelopment of a city ?

Perhaps also a layer for open street map ? ( if that exists ? )

I do know about wikimapia which enables adding specific data about places

but I am not sure such tool is ideal when it comes to specific projects / our own project layers,
or for enabling the superposition of various layers extracted based on specific researches.

Perhaps also that Open Layers could be of use ( although I do not know much about it )

I also know that one can create ones own maps on google maps,
which could be one way to go.

In that case, how to enable automated access to databases directly represented on the maps ?

Then finally, how to make such databases, from private companies and from governmental organizations alike, directly available on maps.
( including access such as water grid information, public transportation data, electricity, gas, fiber optic internet grid data... ? - latest dates for construction works, or planned construction works, ... - or data regarding the condition of the houses, legal information , size of buildings, fire department information, possibly even demographics , ... )

Hence on one hand, a political aspect of making such information accessible,
and on the other, technical solutions, to enable layering of information layers on maps,
and finally uniform resource identifiers ( URI ) which can be used and connected to profiles, or as links on blogs and micro-blogging tools,
as to further enable emergent collaboration ?

Does any of you work on this,
or does any of you know of some answers going in this direction ?
Does any of you use such tools ?

I do understand this may be a booming field.
I remember watching this video :


Perhaps I missed some mails on this list that mentioned such ideas,
as I notice the title of this list is 

"p2p-urbanism-world-atlas"

Thanks!

Dante



Dante-Gabryell Monson

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Dec 28, 2010, 10:42:56 AM12/28/10
to econ...@googlegroups.com, sustainable...@yahoogroups.com, hc_ec...@yahoogroups.com
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Dante-Gabryell Monson <dante....@gmail.com>
Date: Tue, Dec 28, 2010 at 4:39 PM
Subject: Re: [P2P-URBANISM WA] Any of you use map layering for p2p urbanism open collaboration projects ?
To: Michael Mehaffy <michael...@gmail.com>
Cc: Michel Bauwens <michel...@gmail.com>


Waw Michael!

Thanks!

I am now "digging" into your shared experience and suggestions.

I am googling "Open GIS standards" ,
"generative procedures to create forms collaboratively", ...

...

I used to play Sim City when I was a kid :)
It's fun to be able to use a almost similar approach to "Sim City",
but in "Real Life", and with possibly more modulable options :)

I am exploring this as an amateur ( so I m not sure how much I can spam the list to discuss this - feel free to repost to the list if you feel it could interest others )

and I like to try to make it fun ( although its serious ).

For me, its an opportunity to learn and experiment, 
with few risks ( except time invested in a learning experience, and a few thousand euros I do not yet have, to enable access to usership rights to a flat within a housing cooperative approach )

But I imagine that for cities like Leipzig, who recover from a serious decline ( in the case of Leipzig, after the fall of the wall ),
I believe there may be ( non monetary ? ) resources available to support such approaches, if agreements can be made with existing organizations, including town councils, who may have an interest in redevelopment.

Also, I imagine there may be potential for joint funding opportunities from other institutions, including european institutions, providing one can create partnerships with recognized organizations. 

For the moment in Leipzig, there are running programs that enable people to live for free in an apartment, for a certain amount of time, in exchange of renovating it.

When squatters got evicted from a building near Hamburg, the town of Leipzig, via its municipal housing company, officially invited these squatters to come over and have access to a building :

english translation :

I feel like asking the ex-eastern german housing cooperative, who tries to sell its empty buildings, to provide me with some renovated housing space while I do amateur research and redevelopment, which may be in their interest.

I am happy to find a mailinglist like this one, which has more or less experienced or recognized people who are interested in trans-disciplinary approaches.

I hope to be able to create bridges with various amateurs,
some people with more knowledge, others willing to learn, some with no money at all but a lot of time, others with more money, ...
and bring together all these forms of "capital" to collaborate towards non-financially speculative, not for profit and not for loss, use value approaches.

Greetings, currently from Brussels
Dante




On Tue, Dec 28, 2010 at 10:56 AM, Michael Mehaffy <michael...@gmail.com> wrote:
BTW I think Google Earth/Maps might be the best platform, which allows KML as well as importing SketchUp objects.  In principle you could find a building, model it photorealistically, then do a series of collaborative scenarios making changes to the bulding and neighborhood.  These could be explored, refined and used to make further decisions.  

I think this collaborative visualization and refinement is a critical dimension of what we propose, and there is a huge need for a user-friendly system that might sit on this platform.  (Perhaps based on patterns, etc.)  We would need someone who really knows their way around KML and the other Open GIS standards...

Cheers, m


On Tue, Dec 28, 2010 at 8:50 AM, Michael Mehaffy <michael...@gmail.com> wrote:
Hello Dante,

Many communities use a Geographic Information System (GIS) and these are often available to the public, either on-line, or with downloadable data, or both. They are typically layered so it's possible to add one or more layers - depending on the software you use to view it (this varies depending on the system).  

In New Orleans however, we proposed to bypass the usual GIS system and use a Google Earth "mashup" (which allows you to create custom data from other programs and mesh it with the maps).  That way we felt that anyone could use the resulting system and add their data.  We had computer people on the team so I am not able to give you the technical details - but someone more skilled in mashups can probably give you enough to go on.  As with a lot of this technology, I think once you get the basics, the most important thing is just to play with it and learn!

Another option that we need to explore, I think, is using generative procedures t create forms collaboratively.  In principle this could be done with SketchUp and Google Earth, but a) creating the structures requires expertise, and b) those with expertise - architects - are generally not good enough at facilitating the collaboration of others.  Too much top-down approach, usually...  Hence this effort...

We might explore other models, like a Sim-city kind of approach, based on patterns (in fact the game was based on Pattern Language in the first place, according to Wil Wright).  But this would take a lot of time, and very likely, money!  So we need shortcuts...

Cheers, m 


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Michael Mehaffy
333 S. State Street, Suite V-440
Lake Oswego, OR 97034
www.tectics.com

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