Understanding Edmonton: Interactive 3D map gives new insight of city

Walk in any neighbourhood in Edmonton and you’ll see houses, schools and children playing outside – but can you tell the specific demographic of all the residents? You can now, thanks to Eugene Chen. He’s developed a new interactive 3D map.

The idea came to Eugene Chen when he saw the City of Edmonton’s open data demographic analytics. He wanted to create something unique that had never been done before.

“On the mapping tool, Edmontonians would be able to look at their neighbourhoods and compare them with all the different hundreds of neighbourhoods in 3D,” Chen told CityNews. “They’d be able to compare things like household income, age, marital status, the types of structure.”

Chen and his team were helped by Edmonton’s open data says Derek Alton, Chair of Canadian Open Data Society.

“Alberta, in particular the City of Edmonton, are leaders within Canada when it comes to open data,” explained Alton. “Producing open data, enabling people to use that open data.”

Open data is freely accessible data that “gives people the information they need to make individual choices but also push for collective change within their neighbourhoods to make their neighbourhoods better.”

Chen suggests the 3D map of Edmonton can work for those looking for a place to live.

“There are people who are looking to buy a new home. To try and understand where in the city they might want to live depending on things like their household income, it could also depend on seeing what proportion of the neighbourhood speaks French.”