State and Local Government

License plate identification, picture-taking drones and GPS tracking devices are legal in certain cases and their users may have only the best of intentions. So, what could possibly go wrong if these tools are deployed for purposes other than those for which they were intended? Welcome to the new privacy.

Just before Christmas the Lower Hudson News published a map of gun permit holders in two New York counties. The map included names and addresses of permit holders and was published in response to the shootings in Newtown, CT the week before. Most local readers and even those who viewed the map from afar have criticized the paper for its actions. Did the paper make the right decision?

Our editors step up to the plate to evaluate last year's predictions and offer new ones for the geospatial marketplace in 2013.

Maps before and after Hurricane Sandy predicted flood damage well. What can mappers do better next time to support high density urban areas that are likely to be impacted by catastrophic storms?

This week on WNYC's New Tech City, host Manoush Zomorodi speaks with Steven Romalewski, director of the Mapping Service at the Center for Urban Research at the CUNY Graduate Center, about mapping before and after Sandy. Plus, a visit to the map room at the New York Public Library. Cartographers there are working with NYPL Labs to put old maps online and make them useable in the digital age thanks to a process known called

Federal projects and their funding often bring significant revenue to private geospatial companies. In the current economy, that's likely to change. Are companies that lose out on this funding prepared to

Last week a discussion of Spatial Information Technology (SpatialIT) came to a bit of a head. The conversation, led by OpenGeo’s Paul Ramsey, may have unearthed a truth many would rather not hear: “... as we know, GIS courses are just the bait in the trap, to suck naïve students into a career where 90% of the activity is actually in data creation (digitization monkey!) and publication (map monkey!), not in analysis.” Is that right?

Last week Esri announced at its European User Conference that it had acquired LBS firm, Geoloqi. Our editors look at why Esri might be interested in the firm and the new market areas it might open.

The Directions Magazine 2012 Readers Survey provides insights into how the GIS community keeps up with technology and each other. Our editors share the data and try to tease out the subtle messages within them.

The New York-based Justice Mapping Center has been providing those kinds of visuals [maps of blocks of many convicts] for more than a decade. By mapping the residential addresses of every inmate in various prison systems, the center has made vividly clear a concept it calls