Catching up

I've been short on original maps lately (there are several interesting ones in the pipeline). The available time has been spent on other interactive map projects. Here are two:

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	Graphics editor Catherine Farley obtained very detailed spreadsheets of average assessed property values in Toronto broken down to the census tract level. This creates a very fine-grained map, with the city represented in over 500 areas. I produced five maps for the Web based on this data: all properties, detached houses, semi-detached houses, townhouses and condos.
	Another project used Google Maps to look at the pattern of burglaries Col. Russell Williams is accused of committing. At left is a suburban Ottawa neighbourhood, with the house icon on Williams' own house, and the numbers showing the number of burglaries at each address. The addresses came from the documents in which Williams was charged with 82 separate counts of breaking and entering.
Maps elsewhere:
	The Guardian has some maps up from the British election, much like the ones we have done for elections here breaking out each party individually. What this sort of thing really needs is a simple animation for each party showing change over several elections. All the maps but the last one could be set up well beforehand.
	Hat tip to the Google Lat Long blog: a widget that will show an overlay of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill in its real size anywhere on the earth. Toronto is shown at left. You may need the Google Earth browser plugin.