4 ms·

I think there is a strong argument for the Library of Congress or some other public/quasi-public entity to archive Google Maps/StreetView data. Redevelopment ha

I think there is a strong argument for the Library of Congress or some other public/quasi-public entity to archive Google Maps/StreetView data. Redevelopment has been an ongoing fact of life for much of the time I've lived in my area, and huge swathes of the landscape are nigh unrecognizable from when I was a kid. However, a lot of the way things were is preserved in that map and image data. I think this is valuable for any number of applications, let alone the basic act of grounding oneself within the fact of the change that one's environment has undergone over time. Unfortunately, for however grateful I am that Google has made all of this available to us, I don't trust them to preserve it all long-term. I don't think it would be a good idea to let it all slip through our fingers without a plan.

ogurechny 3y ago
Why rely on Daddy Google so much in the first place? A couple of months ago, I was puzzled enough by the lack of large scale urban history services in the West to post this question (with examples of what was possible): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38090473 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38090473
- underlipton 3y ago
  Going forward? We probably shouldn't. Unfortunately, there's no way to go back to 2008 and build a rival dataset. Not without an elaborate space mirror/FTL craft/telescope set-up, at least. As to your question, if I may wax poetic: the history of America (the nation) is short and filled with episodes its residents would like to forget. That brevity makes those events (and the desire to bury them) all the more poignant. As way of an example, which I only recently learned about: Why is much of the East Coast forested? It's not because we didn't clear cut hundreds of thousands of acres of old-growth timber to use for slave-worked farmland which was scarred by the over-planting of cash crops, apparently. I'm sure that's not the whole story, but I imagine that it's part of it. It's so much easier to push New Thing if people don't know what Old Thing is being demolished to make way for it.
jfil 3y ago
As a stopgap, you can download Streetview spheres to your computer. Start with one place that's nostalgic/important to you. For one-at-a-time downloads, use a set of bookmarklets [1] I created for this purpose. For downloading an entire area in bulk, I'd like to shout out Street View Download 360 [2] from young up-and-comer Thomas Orlita. [1] https://jacobfilipp.com/streetviewsave/ https://jacobfilipp.com/streetviewsave/ [2] https://svd360.istreetview.com/ https://svd360.istreetview.com/

ogurechny 3y ago

Why rely on Daddy Google so much in the first place? A couple of months ago, I was puzzled enough by the lack of large scale urban history services in the West to post this question (with examples of what was possible): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38090473 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38090473

underlipton 3y ago
Going forward? We probably shouldn't. Unfortunately, there's no way to go back to 2008 and build a rival dataset. Not without an elaborate space mirror/FTL craft/telescope set-up, at least. As to your question, if I may wax poetic: the history of America (the nation) is short and filled with episodes its residents would like to forget. That brevity makes those events (and the desire to bury them) all the more poignant. As way of an example, which I only recently learned about: Why is much of the East Coast forested? It's not because we didn't clear cut hundreds of thousands of acres of old-growth timber to use for slave-worked farmland which was scarred by the over-planting of cash crops, apparently. I'm sure that's not the whole story, but I imagine that it's part of it. It's so much easier to push New Thing if people don't know what Old Thing is being demolished to make way for it.

jfil 3y ago

As a stopgap, you can download Streetview spheres to your computer. Start with one place that's nostalgic/important to you. For one-at-a-time downloads, use a set of bookmarklets [1] I created for this purpose. For downloading an entire area in bulk, I'd like to shout out Street View Download 360 [2] from young up-and-comer Thomas Orlita. [1] https://jacobfilipp.com/streetviewsave/ https://jacobfilipp.com/streetviewsave/ [2] https://svd360.istreetview.com/ https://svd360.istreetview.com/