Atlanta to be first crowd-mapped U.S. city

By Christopher Quinn

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Jack Kittle of Decatur is helping create a new map of Atlanta, and suddenly the world looks like a more fun place.

Notice the Brick Store Pub and the Raging Burrito on OpenStreetMap's map of Decatur?

Yep, Kittle says: My handiwork.

Scan downtown Atlanta, and map users will see locations mapped by Shari Johnson and Angela Lands: buildings of Georgia State University, locations of police call boxes, bike racks and a Dunkin' Donuts.

The three are part of the crowd of people who will help the nonprofit OpenStreetMaps create the first comprehensive, open-source electronic map of a U.S. city. Large swaths of Europe and other countries have already been mapped by the organization's participants.

What's open source? It is when anyone who registers online with the nonprofit and learns how to put in data can add whatever he thinks is useful or fun to the map. It is just like the data that the big Global Positioning System mapping companies create for car navigation systems to use.

What most navigation system users don't think about is that the companies that use the electronic maps to build navigation units -- as well as local governments or anyone else using them -- have to pay the handful of mapping companies for the rights to that information. Those costs get passed along to someone looking for a place to grab a beer or a doughnut.

Maps from OpenStreetMap's are free, can be downloaded into some navigation units, and the maps should be more detailed and up to date than commercial maps,  says the nonprofit's founder.

Steve Coast, 34, OpenStreetMaps' British founder, said he was playing around with a GPS unit in 2004 and realized that if he wanted to modify the map it was showing, he would be infringing on the mapmaker's copyright. He thought about Wikipedia, the open-source, Web-based encyclopedia written by people all over the world rather than academic experts, and it suddenly made sense to him to create open-source maps. After all, who better knows their own neighborhoods than the people who live there?

Coast, a tech entrepreneur, began talking up the idea at conferences at which he was speaking. Within a couple of years, he had more than 10,000 users online. By 2008, it had grown to more than 100,000 worldwide. Germany is almost completely mapped now, he said.

"Once it gets going, it's like a steamroller," Coast said. "You can't stop it."

He said he began evangelizing the idea in the U.S. about 18 months ago. He began looking for a city to hold one of OpenStreetMap's signature weekend mapathons, to map out a city as much as possible in a few days. They and the couple of hundred volunteers they are hoping for will work Friday through Sunday to fill in as many blank spots as possible inside I-285.

He chose Atlanta because local governments, companies and people expressed a lot of interest, he said.

Kittle, for instance, works for Aqua Terra, an environmental consulting firm that uses maps. He and about 50 others got an early start with some training by OpenStreetMaps downtown on Sept. 13. Others came  from local government information technology offices or were simply interested.

Johnson, 26, is a Kennesaw State University geography student and head of the geography club.

"I'm glad I'm able to contribute to the bigger picture," she said.

And there is a rebellious edge to the work for some. They want to break what they see as monopolistic control of maps by a few companies.

Thea Clay, an organizer for OpenStreetMaps, said, "For me it's about taking back the data, being able to have some control over our communities."

More information about the mapathon can be found at http://wiki.community.cloudmade.com/wiki/atlanta. People interested in participating can also call 404-496-6627.