This is an idea for a small, simple, standalone project. It's not directly world changing, but would be quite fun, and improve general understanding of ONS data.
Lower Layer Super Output Areas (LSOA) cover the whole country, each containing about 1500 people. They are one of the ways the Office of National Statistics publishes lots of data. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ONS_coding_system#Super_Output_Areas You can get the polygon boundaries of the LSOAs here: https://data.gov.uk/dataset/lower_layer_super_output_area_lsoa_boundaries Each LSOA is classified demographically. e.g. 1b: Older Metropolitan Dwellers within the City Centre Melting Point You can get these codes in National Statistics Postcode Directory (NSPD) http://www.ons.gov.uk/about-statistics/geography/products/geog-products-postcode/nspd/ Download NSPD for free here: http://parlvid.mysociety.org:81/os/ There must be a dataset somewhere with them indexed directly by LSOA too. I think it'd be nice to have a scrollable map layer (on top of Google Maps or in OpenLayers or similar) with the actual boundaries of LSOAs (and indeed middle and upper layer ones) marked up, along with some way of seeing what the classification type is (colour and a key, with hover over, or something more imaginative). And a postcode search, that shows you the type of where you live. So that's the first step - just be able to browse the country as to how ONS demographically categorises quite small areas. And see exactly what the areas are near me - how big they are where I live. Then the next stage would be to take lots of other ONS data sets that are indexed by SOA and map them on the map too.. Anyway, this email is just in case someone is looking for something to code that would be interesting / useful :) Francis _______________________________________________ Mailing list [email protected] Archive, settings, or unsubscribe: https://secure.mysociety.org/admin/lists/mailman/listinfo/developers-public
