Chasing the Neogeography Dream

It is Still Too Hard to Make a Map

Neogeography is about people using and creating their own maps, on their own terms and by combining elements of an existing toolset. Neogeography is about sharing location information with friends and visitors, helping shape context, and conveying understanding through knowledge of place.

— Andrew Turner, Introduction to Neogeography

urban exploration, site specific sculpture, land/earth art, geo-tagging, guided walks, ephemeral cities, imaginary urbanism, altered maps/radical cartography, travel writing, psychogeography, place based photo blogging...

What connects all of these activities? There may not be a clear answer, but we would say they all comprise, or fall under the rubric of, neogeography.

— Platial blog

Did "neogeography" succeed?

Maps for experts: Esri ArcGIS

Esri

Mid-2000s mapping mashups

Platial

What does this have to do with OpenStreetMap?

Map editing: data production, contributing geographical knowledge to a shared commons

iD editor

Mapmaking: data consumption, cartography

NYC Planning Labs

OSM at its best is both data creation and consumption

We ought to have two-way relationship with digital infrastructure in our daily lives.

OSM Success stories

  • Any new individual, company or organization needing map data starts with OSM.
  • ODbL License is commercial-friendly and ensures longevity of project.
  • Tagging schema is deliberately open-ended.

Opinion: It is still far too difficult to make a map from OpenStreetMap

OSM Shared Difficulties

  • Every consumer needs to be an expert on open-ended tagging scheme.
  • Vital information for mapmaking, like common names, are not on-the-ground verifiable.

To make a map, you must be a tagging expert.

OSM Wiki

To put a map online, you must use specialized software.

Switch2OSM.org

To put a map online, you must be a system administrator.

DigitalOcean

Why we can't have nice things

The business of OSM often relies on OSM being hard to use.

"The Wikipedia of Maps"

Wikipedia

Download the entire project

Wikipedia

The main way to access wikipedia: unlike OSM

Wikipedia

Chasing the dream: anyone* should be able to make a map of the world.

Projects to make this dream a reality

  • Significantly reduces tagging expertise needed for common use cases
  • Liberal approach to imports, data beyond "on-the-ground" principle
  • Not a mapper contributions project (downstream of OSM)

OpenStreetMap Foundation

OSMF Vector Tiles

  • Standard tile layer accessible to anyone with some customization
  • Not intended to be reproduced outside of OSMF

Cloud-Native Geo Formats

  • Publishing is accessible to web developers without specialized software or sysadmin expertise
  • Open formats are usable outside of OSM ecosystem

Conclusions

  • It is still too hard to make a map from OpenStreetMap data.
  • "Neogeography" is essential for making OSM relevant to a wider audience.
  • Innovation for making OSM easier should come from outside the traditional service-provider marketplace.