If there was a tsunami warning in your area, could you escape on foot? Take a look at the Pedestrian Evacuation Analyst by the USGS. This new ArcGIS extension takes into account not just speed on foot but terrain, and also highlights the areas of high ground that would likely be the safest places to be.
Dear Developers + Mappers:
Please join me for the inaugural Google Maptoberfest. Engineers and Product Managers from the Google Maps team will be on hand for you to ask questions about our mapping tools and APIs. We also want to hear about your apps and sites and learn more about how developers are building great maps and location based experiences.
Register for Maptoberfest here. Date, time and location below.
Best,
Brian McClendon
VP, Google Maps and Google Earth
Google Maptoberfest
October 29, 2014, 5:00pm – 9:00pm
Obscura Digital, 729 Tennessee St., San Francisco
New Policy Regarding the Maintenance of Administrative Feature Names in the GNIS
Effective October 1, 2014: As a result of reprioritized budgets and resources, the decision has been made to suspend the maintenance of feature categories classified in the Geographic Names Information System (GNIS) as administrative (i.e., cultural or manmade).
However, a select number of administrative features will continue to be maintained by other USGS programs supporting The National Map. These features will be updated in GNIS on a periodic revision cycle. If you are interested in participating in the USGS National Map Corps program, which “encourages citizens to collect structures data by adding new features, removing obsolete points, and correcting existing data for The National Map database,” please visit the following web site: http://navigator.er.usgs.gov. To identify the administrative features to be maintained through The National Map Corps program, click Structures List, located on the left-hand side of the web page.
If you have further questions, please visit The National Map home page at: http://nationalmap.gov. Inquiries may be submitted to The National Map via the link at the bottom of the page.
Just an FYI to all City GIS staff in LA County. If you have GIS applications or data that have links to the LA County Assessor maps, you might find them broken now. It looks like LA County has moved the links since they updated their Property Assessment Information System application here.
For example, this old PDF link:
http://maps.assessor.lacounty.gov/mapping/viewAssessorMapPDF.asp?val=2438-018
has been replaced with this new one:
http://maps.assessor.lacounty.gov/Geocortex/Essentials/REST/sites/PAIS/VirtualDirectory/AssessorMaps/ViewMap.html?val=2438-018
Burbank has a few apps that are broken now. I bet you do too! -mike
Want a custom handcrafted wood-inlay map? Zoom into an area on a map and this company will create a woodcut map of that area for you. Choose type of wood combos for land, water, parks, and roads, and also customize the border, data source (Google or OpenStreetMap), road detail, and if you want to include hospitals, schools, and buildings. Check it out!
Remember, only 96 days until Christmas! Or less if you are reading this later.
Understanding geographic relationships is key to understanding how to properly use Census Bureau data. This article sheds some light on how these different entities relate to one another. It focuses on geographic relationships that exist below the national level, such as ZIP Code tabulation areas and school districts.
Prevalence of “um” vs. “uh” in the United States.
Over the years, making a globe is still mostly a manual process.
Making a globe in 1935:
Globe making in 1955:
Making a globe today:
Developed as part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s massive package of assistance programs designed to pull the United States out of the Great Depression, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) was known for employing thousands of artists to paint murals in federal buildings and for also employing thousands of the nations’ unemployed in hundreds of massive construction projects around the country.
One of these many programs was also designed to create maps of various locales. The WPA conducted a land use survey from December 18, 1933 to May 8, 1939 for the City of Los Angeles, Department of City Planning. It covered approximately 460 square miles within the boundary of the City of Los Angeles and resulted in a series of 345 hand-colored land use survey maps. They are collected in 10 books (averaging 35 maps per book) each corresponding to a geographic region within the City’s boundary. The books cover:
Each original map measures approximately 2 ft. x 3.5 ft. The maps themselves identify whether land was vacant or used for commercial, farming, residential, industrial, manufacturing, or recreational purposes.
A website, provided by USC, allows users access to the 345 maps. Along with viewing various maps of the different neighborhoods throughout the city, you can search the contents of the maps. Check it out.
Here is an interesting map and article about the spread of the military’s surplus gear in state and local police departments. The data is grouped by county and you can filter by aircraft, armored vehicles, body armor, grenade launchers, night vision, and assault rifles. In LA County there are 3 mine-resistant vehicles … they probably work well with all the potholes around here too!
