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By placing the user in the context of their resource use through maps and pictures, You Are Here will answer these questions. When it can't answer them, it will tap the community to crowdsource the stories and statistics behind our resource use. And most importantly, it will connect users to projects, organizations, and initiatives relevent to their search.

Where do our resources come from? And where does our waste go? These seem like simple questions. If asked a century or two ago, most people could provide a fairly straightforward answer by pointing to the river, forest, or farm.

But times have changed.

Water now comes from the faucet, energy from the socket, food from the supermarket.Our waste is even more ambiguous:we take the trash “out” and throw things “away.”

The answers to these overlooked questions define the parameters of our very existence. And while most new web apps plunge the user into a vast digital nowhere, You Are Here does just the opposite.

Imagine:you visit You Are Here and punch in your zip code. Immediately, you find out that your water is piped in from a steadily dwindling aquifer in another state, that your garbage is being carted off to an incinerator in the the poorest part of your city. You see pictures of these places, discover their proximity on maps, see related statistics about resource use and waste production.

And something makes you mad--maybe the incinerator is a stonesthrow from your daughter's school, or you suddenly understand that the hundreds of thousands of gallons of water used on the local golf course is going to screw your community in the long-run. Good news: you don't have to seethe behind your computer, alone with your outrage until you get distracted by the next shiny thing on the net. With a couple of clicks You Are Here also connects you to organizations working on just these issues—suddenly you're linked up with a group working to create a city composting program or a water-conservation organization.

And just like that, you're no longer separated from the things that connect you to the world at large. Welcome to You Are Here.

What information will people interact with to make this change?

The users of You Are Here will interact with a variety of information:

They will see their watersheds, reservoirs, power-plants, and waste facilities mapped and photographed.

They will view local averages for energy consumption and waste production, and be able to compare them to the average in other regions.

They will see the information for relevant organizations and initiatives displayed.

What else have you done in this Cause Area?

I have helped to develop maps that connect local groups and display information in compelling ways that promotes engagement with political leaders for http://www.stepitup2007.org

I have worked with GIS to map proposed coal-fired power plants.

Beyond this, I have been fascinated in general by new and empowering ways to present information to people.

Cause Area:
Financial support?:
No
City:
San Francisco
State/Region:
CA
Country:
USA

The Assessment

What kind of help or resources do you need to turn your project idea into a completed mashup?

Significant development and project management resources would be needed to complete this mashup, given that right now it's not much more than an idea in my head (or now, in the Mashup Challenge!).