Show us the Stimulus

Government is under pressure to show where stimulus dollars are being spent. A new report rates state websites on how well they show the distribution of funds within their borders. Maps play a critical part in this.

Good Jobs First, a non-profit research center based in Washington, DC, has just published Show Us the Stimulus (Again), an update of a similar report last July. It shows great improvements in the states’ ability to document where the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) dollars are being spent. Some $200 billion dollars are flowing through the states.

The report ranks the states on their ability to show where the money is going. Scores range from 5-87 on a 100 point scale. GIS and mapping contribute greatly to the ability of states to score well in this review. Maryland is rated #1. Three of the seven rating criteria are based on geography:

• Map the distribution of funding at the county level or equivalent.
• Compare that distribution with patterns of economic distress.
• Map individual projects

The Good Jobs First website includes the report, appendices rating the individual state efforts, and links to the state websites. See Show Us the Stimulus: An Evaluation of State Government Recovery Act Websites

All Points Blog Praises MassGIS

All Points Blog-er Adena Schutzberg) asks Does your state have a webpage for geospatial services like this? in a post this morning in praise of the State of Massachusetts' MassGIS Geospatial Web Services Homepage.

I continue to be impressed by what my state (ok commonwealth) does with GIS. MassGIS is the Commonwealth's Office of Geographic and Environmental Information and like many other offices that have statewide GIS responsibilities is underfunded, under-respected and doesn't get out much. Still, they offer some great resources.

The Geospatial Web Services page offers a developer guide for the Web services that MassGIS provides.

The Economist Noticed!

The Economist magazine has a short feature on the power of presenting information through maps. In Mapping a better world, the magazine looks at some recent successes in the use of maps and on-line map presentation to address social and political challenges.

For most people it is merely a handy tool to find a nearby pizzeria or get directions to a meeting. But mapping technology has matured into a tool for social justice. Whether it is to promote health, safety, fair politics or a cleaner environment, foundations, non-profit groups and individuals around the world are finding that maps can help them make their case far more intuitively and effectively than speeches, policy papers or press releases.

The story details uses of mapped information for a variety of purposes, including political activism, law enforcement, and social science applications.

And it includes a quote from NSGIC member Jeff Vining, of Gartner:

“Today you are allowed to visualise data in ways you couldn’t even understand just a few years ago,” says Jeff Vining of Gartner, a consulting firm.

With thanks to ESRI and GotGeoInt, on twitter, for the link!

Internet mapping and the Public Trust

The ongoing discussion of web-based mapping and imagery applications (GoogleMaps, YahooMaps, Microsoft Virtual Earth, etc.) in the context of governmental data and funding objectives continues with this summary of a presentation made at the ESRI Federal User Conference. The summary, and the commentary by the original author of the presentation, are somewhat provocative. Definitely worth a click and a few moments of reading, especially the original author's clarifications in the comments section (#4).

All Points Blog - Is Google Earth a Public Trust?