I’m thinking about starting a project to develop an application that uses crime incident data from the City of San Francisco and allows people to identify crimes that occur close to their homes and/or places of business. I worked on a similar project for the original Apps for Democracy contest last year.
Crime incident data from the SF Police Department is available in KML format here. I’d like to take the data in these files – which appears to be updated daily – and populate a relational database with information on specific crime incidents, including locational information.
I’d also like to develop an application that citizens can access to identify the crime incidents that occur closest to their specific locations (home, work, or wherever they happen to be at the moment). The application would be accessible through a range of modalities – standard cell phone, micro-browser, Twitter, IM client, etc. – and would query the relational database storing crime incidents.
If anyone is interested in working on such a project, give me a shout. I’ll post updates on any progress made on such a project going forward.
Looking forward to hearing from other civic coders!
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