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Flexible Open Geographies (FOG)

learning from Natural Neighbourhoods

28 January 2015

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Agenda1. Introduction

1. Purpose of the session

2. Who is here?

3. From Natural neighbourhoods

4. Lessons learned

5. FOG deliverables in brief

2. What do we want?1. Cheshire East and its sub-region

2. Everyone

3. Review of beta with respect to needs for:1. Reporting metrics

2. URIs and Linked Data

4. Next steps

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1.1 Purpose and introductionsTo ensure the Open Data Breakthrough fund deliverable is fit for its intended audiences:

The project will deliver a tool to publish non-official geographical areas individually and in hierarchies as open data with Uniform Resource Identifiers (URIs) associated with their shapes and other properties.

– Extend the idea of Natural Neighbourhoods– Apply to any area across England, not just within a local authority– Permit hierarchies of areas (eg areas within districts)– Provide a search facility and API that provides the hierarchies of geographical areas that enclose a

given point– Be published as an open source application that will:

• Allow display and definition of geographies over an Open Street Map map and as text• Render neighbourhoods as URIs that resolve to HTML, RDF-XML and other formats with KML boundaries• Aggregate a selection of open public data metrics and express it for neighbourhoods• Allow upload of open data for areas that make up neighbourhoods• Provide a query tool and API for querying metrics pertaining to neighbourhoods

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1.2 Who is here?

Andy

Dom

Francis

Gesche

Jonathan

Leigh

Mike

Nicki

Phil

Tim

Representing:– People wishing to report across non-standard areas– Developers, open data and linked data users

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1.3 From Natural Neighbourhoods

474 neighbourhoods of137 neighbourhood types

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1.4 Lessons learned from NNNeed:

1. areas spanning multiple local authorities

2. areas not co-terminal with OAs

3. to distinguish between area types and groups of areas

4. hierarchies of areas

5. to help developers use the areas

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1.4a Hierarchies of areasCountry

Region

Unitary and

county

Unitary and

districtUnitary DistrictCounty

Ward

MLSOA

LSOA

OA

Country Official

Partnership, CTG, Town centre, ...

Community network

areas

Community impact

mitigation areas

Natural neighbourhood

CTG

Sub-region

CHP region

CCG

Flood plains

CHP region

FOG extension

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1.4b Bounded comparison groups

Areas of one type within an area

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1.5 FOG deliverables

MetricsArea types Areas

CountryRegionSub-regionDistrict/unitaryTown centre

PopulationCrimeEmploymentRoad safetyFootfall

EnglandNorth WestCheshire & WarringtonCheshire EastCrewe

API

Sample applications

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2. What do we want to achieve

• Cheshire East and its sub-region• Everyone else

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3. Review of beta application

• Area types eg Sub-region• Areas eg Cheshire and Warrington• Metrics download and upload• API and sample applications:

– Table example– Chart example– Map example– Areas around a point eg: Eastbourne, Crewe

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3a Meeting the need1. Defining areas

1. Ways of avoiding junk data

2. Security of adding/updating and linking to

3. How new root areas are defined (KML)

4. Documents and links

5. “Covers whole area” and “primary area” properties

2. Reporting metrics1. Uploaded vs aggregated metrics (for and from what area types?)

2. Making different area types available for different applications

3. Do bounded comparison groups meet all our needs? (Dealing with all councils, top tier, district and unitary.)

3. URIs and Linked Data1. URIs comprised of area type / area id with sameAs relationship to equivalent URIs

2. What formats do we need to support as extensions and over HTTP

3. Managing change whilst keeping the URIs live

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4. Next steps

• Finishing the application• Putting on Github• Documentation• Amending natural neighbourhoods app• Publicity• Adoption within tools (LG Inform Plus and

others)• Ongoing support and cleansing