Grim Visualizations : Crime Mashups 2.0

We all remember the Chicago Crime Map which took Chicago police reports and overlayed it on top of Google Maps. For many, this was their first exposure into the world of mashups and to a large extent opened everyone’s eyes to the benefits of opening up your data. That was 2005. Now the UED crowd has taken a shot at the concept and are starting to publish their own versions:

Oakland Crimespotting by Stamen Design
LA Times Homicide Map

Posted

in

by

Comments

3 responses to “Grim Visualizations : Crime Mashups 2.0”

  1. Scott Schnaars Avatar

    Bad news not only sells papers, but generates traffic as well.

    Mercury News has a similar site (http://www.mercurynews.com/search/ci_5290027?IADID).

    With so many major media outlets, it’s probably safe to assume that there is a simple crime map API pre-written for all markets in which publishers can simply tweak the parameters and drop on the page.

    I wonder what the advantage / disadvantage would be to incorporate Zillow into all of this? Perhaps if the community could see the real time impact that crime has on their equity, people might be more apt to do things to prevent crime (neighborhood watch, volunteering, graffiti clean up, etc.).

  2. Brandon Greeley Avatar
    Brandon Greeley

    Hi Ian. I used to contract for the Los Angeles Times. The map was done by myself and a coworker of mine. It's kind of a trip to see screenshots, especially with the old layout. Memories.

  3. iankennedy Avatar

    Hi Brandon – thanks for stopping by. Nice work on the maps and happy to provide you with a walk down the virtual memory lane.

Leave a Reply to Scott SchnaarsCancel reply