In collaborative cartography, free data trumps free services - Wired explains the user’s frustrations with how #Google #Maps data can only be accessed through Google services. As you surely guessed, the salvation is found in #Openstreetmap:
▻http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2013/08/power-of-amateur-cartographers
Filling in the gaps: slum mapping
It’s also been a problem with inner city slums where “the quality of the mapping is often rather poor”, says Sliuzas.
“In some cities, these areas are quite well mapped and quite well monitored. In Sao Paulo in Brazil, for example, they have a very big program. All of the data has been collected, it’s online, it’s monitored regularly — but that’s unusual, there are many many cities where people don’t know at all what the situation is.”
(...)
Many would argue that it lies to the state to make sure these areas are properly mapped and understood, but there have been cases where slums have been deliberately left off maps because authorities don’t consider them formal parts of the city. This results in a situation where everyone knows there are slums in the city, but nobody can see them when they look at a map, says Sliuzas, who has dedicated his career to studying areas of urban poverty and informal settlements.
