The CommonsCensus Map Project

The CommonCensus Map Project redraws the map of the United States based on a survey questions, to reveal the boundaries people themselves feel (i.e. sphere of influence), as opposed to the official state and county boundaries.

The national maps shows the response to the question “On the level of North America as a whole, what major city do you feel has the most cultural and economic influence on your area overall?”

Regional maps show the response to the question “Please choose the name of the local community that you feel is the natural cultural and economic center within your local area.”

Local maps show the response to the question “What do you consider to be your local community?”

Relation to my thesis: People do not always follow the official boundaries to refer to areas. A local neighborood might reveal very fuzzy and fluctuating edges depending on a context. This is what Ian White highlights in User-centered approach on geodata by saying “In practice, a neighbor is defined with average centroid based on population density and then a radial curve is drawn. This barely represents reality in many cases and in the context of use many time useless”.

Due to the low amount of data, the areas of the map are still highly inaccurate and subject to change. It is an example of bottom-up generated information uncertainty.