[Xastir] A rant on the shapefiles...

[Brad Douglas]

On Wed, 2008-04-09 at 08:30 -0700, Curt, WE7U wrote:
> On Wed, 9 Apr 2008, Richard Polivka, N6NKO wrote:
> 
> > I am wondering who participated in getting these maps made? Was it state,
> > county, feds?
> 
> Blame the census takers.  Feds.  Federalies.  Men in black?
> 
> For the purpose of taking the every-10-year federal census they've
> kept track of roads.  Unfortunately the census-takers haven't had
> any cartography training (hey, it's really not their job, right?).
> The maps were not intended to be used for the purposes people put
> them to.  That philosophy is changing a bit lately and they're
> trying to do a better job on the data.  I suspect Gerry or Tom can
> fill us in on the details, but that's my vague recollection.

Let's not forget the fact that "cartographic data" (ie. street data) was
never a goal of the Census.  It simply fell out of the LineFile format
due to their need to track data at the block and tract levels.  It was
literally an afterthought.

Of course, since then, geographers have been using it to extract roads
and other features and have increasingly put pressure on the Census to
make this a real part of the Census and not a byproduct.  As a result,
the Census began releasing periodic updates every few years with
cartographic updates.  It wasn't great, but it was better than nothing.

They are finally getting serious about it and storing the geographic
referenced data is well known formats.  Hopefully, they'll start working
on the accuracy of that data...


-- 
73, de Brad KB8UYR/6 <rez touchofmadness com>