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A first step towards freeing London’s data (london.gov.uk)
24 points by robin_reala on Jan 7, 2010 | hide | past | favorite | 19 comments



Hey, that's some quality XML they're pumping out there. From their population data:

  <ROWSET>
    <ROW>
      <Area_Code>00AA</Area_Code>
      <Area_Name>City of London</Area_Name>
      <Persons-1801>129000</Persons-1801>
      <Persons-1811>121000</Persons-1811>
      <Persons-1821>125000</Persons-1821>
      <!-- ... -->
    </ROW>
  </ROWSET>
http://data.london.gov.uk/datastore/package/historic-census-...

Embedding the year into the element name, useful that.


Personally I prefer http://data.london.gov.uk/datafiles/health/alcohol-indicator... and its amazing <Persons_aged_under_18_years_admitted_to_hospital_with_alcohol_specific_conditions_Crude_Rate_per_100000_population_Numbers_-_2005-2006_to_2007-2008> element.

But, as their title suggests, this is a first step.


you could send them a tweet http://twitter.com/londondatastore and ask them to fix it

I've sent them a couple of bugs / broken links and they've fixed & replied within a few minutes.

edit: they've just tweeted about the xml structure so hopefully will sort it out soon.


o, they also have a google group for things that need more than 140 chars - http://groups.google.com/group/londondatastore


There's also things like this: http://data.london.gov.uk/datafiles/crime-community-safety/a...

  <Ward_Code>00AAFB</Ward_Code>
  <Ward_Name>Aldgate</Ward_Name>
  <District_Code>00AA</District_Code>
  <District_Name>City of London</District_Name>
  <Count_12-2007/>
  <Count_1-2008/>
  <Count_2-2008/>
  <Count_3-2008/>
  <Count_4-2008/>
  <Count_5-2008/>
  <Count_6-2008/>
So... is that zero (a safe area) or no data (an unknown quantity)?


I noticed this too. As a Londoner, I am pretty excited by this release of data, but, seriously, could they not use attributes for things like the year?!


I'd love it if they released some real-time data. Imagine an iPhone app that gave you the position of every tube train and bus in the city.


It is good that mobiles do not work in the tube, as real-time position information is a security concern.


I never really understood why that would be the case. What can people do with that information that they couldn't do otherwise?


I was implying more GPS-synchronized bomb triggers.


Sounds like more of a movie plot threat than anything worth worrying about. If you really want to do that attaching your own GPS device to the bottom of a bus (or just having an observer with a mobile phone) is easy enough as it is.


I didn't expect that the current Mayor of London, Boris Johnson would do a decent job when he got elected. Surprisingly enough, he actually does.


It's interesting to see the difference in terms of corporate culture. Ken Livingstone saw himself as hugely important, he would fly his entourage (always first class) to Latin America and sign "treaties" with foreign governments when he should have been, I dunno, running London like he was elected to do. He was completely out of touch, like the CEO of a huge company that's lost it's way. Like the Detroit automakers flying a private jet to DC to ask for a bailout from the taxpayer.

Boris doesn't make a fuss, he flies in cattle class, he rides his bike around the city (and around city hall!) and always seems to be in a good mood, and he gets stuff done at an incredible rate, precisely because he's not spending all his time making sure everyone knows how important he is. He's the startup mayor.


Upvoted for interesting perspective. Do you have sources?

(That's not meant to be combative - I've also been pleasantly surprised by Boris so far.)


Well, Ken's entourage of 85 people:

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23421491-kens...

Boris flies economy to Beijing:

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard-mayor/article-2354228...

There are plenty like this. Ken's extravagance and the favours he dished out to his cronies were legendary.


I did expect him to do a decent job, precisely because everyone was expecting him to be useless, and I've come to realise that the world tends to mess you about that way. Although I'm not a London resident, so I didn't get to vote on him, nor am I (directly) affected by things he does.


Too bad they're not so open at the Royal Mail. Regardless of the wikileaks.org publishing of the data, their charging money for a canonical table of postal code data is shameful at best.


as the pagination on the a-z seems a bit broken, they do have a full listing page of whats planned on launch - http://data.london.gov.uk/datastore/data-packages-launch

edit: sorry, that page is list of whats planned for launch, not whats there now


Does anyone know if this type of data is released by New York City?




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