Planning Pool

Just a quick update to Monday’s post about Vancouver’s Open City Intiative – a beta version of Vancouver’s Open Data Catalogue is now available online at data.vancouver.ca

Check out the data that is available so far (mostly geospatial data), and let the City know through their priority survey which datasets you think should be made available next!

Vancouver’s announcement earlier this summer that the city would open its data created quite a buzz on blogs and podcasts around the world.

Photo from Vancouver Transit Camp by Jason Vanderhill on Flickr

What is involved in opening a municipality’s data to the public? The motion passed by Vancouver city council this May includes three simple components:

Any data that the city collects, from current zoning applications to the library catalogue, should be made publicly accessible unless it impacts individual privacy.

While plenty of public documents and data have long been publicly available, open standards will improve its accessibility and usefulness.

City-made software will be licensed … Continue Reading