We’re delighted to report that #MapJam 3.0 was a great success and a testament to the ever-growing interest in showcasing and utilizing community-based sharing resources. More than 200 people came to #MapJam events in cities around the world, including Beirut, Gothenburg, Lisbon, Rio de Janeiro, San Francisco, and Toronto, to create and update public maps of resources in their communities that foster sharing.
Most of the groups that participated in #MapJam in April launched community maps for the first time. They plan to continue the process of contributing to these maps in the coming months. Other groups that had already established community maps focused on updating and promoting them. You can view the full list of maps here.
Given the great turnout at all the events last month, we’ve decided to host two more rounds of #MapJam this year — in June and October.
If you missed hosting or participating in #MapJam in April, we invite you to join us during #GlobalSharingWeek — from June 5-11, for the second round.
To find an upcoming event or to host your own #MapJam, click here. And check out our extensive resources page, which includes a comprehensive guide for #MapJam hosts.
Need a little inspiration? Watch this awesome video from our friends in Beirut:
Are you ready to bring #MapJam to your community? We’re hosting a Q&A session today, Tuesday, May 17, at 9 a.m. PST. Just click on this link to join: https://zoom.us/j/225618826
If you have any questions, send us a note: info [at] shareable [dot] net
Header photo by Rouba Abou Chake: http://bit.ly/1TYkyGj
Cross-posted from Shareable.net and written by Tom Llewellyn.
What’s a “holy shit visualization”?
It’s a way of looking at data that makes turns a statistic you might have flipped past in a book or skimmed by on a web page into something that you can’t forget. It’s a visceral reminder of the power of images and the power of looking at dry numbers in human terms.
For Mike Evans, the map below was a holy shit visualization. Properties in yellow are in tax distress. Those in orange are under tax foreclosure. Those in red have been foreclosed.
In 2014, 50% of properties in the city of Detroit were in danger of foreclosure, being foreclosed, or owned by the city. That’s a frightening statistic. But seeing what it looks like on the map makes the scale of the problem more visceral.
Evans knew this was a powerful visualization when he took the map to the county treasurer, who had his own “holy shit” moment seeing the data. Mike asks, “What does it mean when the county treasurer doesn’t know this? What does this mean for a homeowner who’s far more removed from this information?”
Evans is senior developer with Loveland Technologies, a for-profit technology consultancy in Detroit, MI that focuses on mapping land ownership in cities, especially in Detroit. He visited Center for Civic Media at the MIT Media Lab yesterday to talk about the community mapping work he and his team have taken on in Detroit and around the US. Loveland is a project started by Jerry Paffendorf, who had the clever idea of selling distressed properties in Detroit one square inch at a time.
http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2015/03/06/its-scary-when-we-can-do-this-out-of-love-and-theres-nothing-you-can-threaten-us-with/#sthash.0GpOr0y8.dpuf
leerstandsmelder.de is a website that maps vacant buildings in German cities. The project was initiated by students of architecture in Hamburg a more than a year ago when they mapped the vacant buildings of a derelict area in Hamburg, the Gängeviertel. After a year the project was expanded throughout Germany and currently maps vacant buildings in Hamburg, Berlin, Bremen, Kaiserlauten and Frankfurt.
http://synccity.blogspot.com/2012/04/mapping-vacancy-to-initiate-temporary.html