Since launching the Amenities & Social Infrastructure feature on Chicago Cityscape in September, using open source and data purchased from MAPSCorps, we’ve updated the database two times. This means that every time you look up an Address Snapshot you’ll be presented with even more information about nearby supermarkets and doctor offices.
In November we expanded the area of interest beyond the Chicago city limits to include an envelope around Cook County. This envelope also includes many suburbs in other counties.
The expansion added several thousand new amenities (including parks, hospitals, convenience stores, and bar & restaurants).
The map on the right shows the new area of interest, a bounding box that includes all of Cook County, and then some. (It’s called an envelope in PostGIS, the GIS database software that powers Chicago Cityscape.)
In December we continued to use the expanded area of interest. A little over 200 amenities were added between November and December, a result of OpenStreetMap contributors adding new buildings and points of interest.
