Reading Google Street Views

[John Lee]

Google maps provides access to a massive collection of street level photographs from places all over the world. A list of street view locations is maintained on Wikipedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Street_View

How can we use this rich source of geographic information to learn about place? Here is one lightly scaffolded approach.

1. Define a bounded area for analysis. This should be a space fixed on four sides with physical markers such as streets or water/land features that can be identified on Google Maps.

2. Construct a pathway for the analysis. This pathway should cover as much ground as possible.

3. Describe the area in "bird's eye" spatial terms.

4. Describe street level features with references to physical markers such as streets or water/land features that can be identified on Google Maps.

5. Describe in thematic terms how the area being analyzed is used given the street level photography.


Here is a street view in Madrid. This opening photo in Google Street View was taken from the Plaza de La Orotava. The street is located several miles from the city center and includes a number of apartment style urban residences. The buildings appear to be well maintained, but graffiti is visible on several walls.

[Chris Touch]

http://maps.google.com/maps?ie=UTF-8&hl=en&tab=wl

If the above link is inaccurate, use google maps, and keyword Colisseum, Rome and request "street view"

The area I mapped out for a street view was the area around the Colisseum in Rome, Italy. The area is defined and mapped along the Piazza del Colosseo. This would be the Colisseum Plaza. Also mapped here is the Via Capo d’Africa. Also mapped on the streets is the Viale del Parco del Celio. The pathway goes around 50% of the Colisseum and starts and finishes on the Piazza del Colosseo (Colisseum Plaza) and there are various parks and walkways on the Via Capo d’Africa and the Viale del Parco. What is fascinating that a lot of people do not know is that the Colisseum was built on what was the former gardens of the Roman emperor, Nero. It was built by the emperor Vespasian who demolished the Nero gardens to give a gift back to the people of Rome.
The area of this street view is from the street level view. There is not much viewing area into windows or shops. Due to the sensitivity of the archaeological resources, the view is from a pedestrian view, as cameras cannot be placed on the ancient architecture. The area follows the main stretch of highway around the Palatine Hill. That same main stretch of road (Piazza del Colosseo) goes around the Colisseum and past some ancient columns. The Palatine Hill has many natural park areas around the main attraction. From the bird’s eye view this is not a square but a circular area in the Palatine Hill. It is in the central area of the city of Rome. This was planned on purpose by the ancients.

[Anisha Andrews]

Street View: http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=&layer=c&cbll=40.758437,-73.985164&cbp=11,42.04,,0,-6.66&ie=UTF8&om=1&panoid=s_TY766yv4kWDddHKN8OVQ&t=h&ll=40.75844,-73.985195&spn=0.042649,0.174923&z=13&utm_campaign=en&utm_medium=ha&utm_source=en-ha-na-us-bk-svn&utm_term=%7Bkeyword%7D



I chose to view a google map of Sydney Australia. I’ve always wanted to travel to Australia but I hate flying and I don’t think I could endure a 22 hour plane ride, so this was the next best thing. I began at 490 George Street and I immediately noticed how the streets resemble those of New York down at the Port Authority on 34th Street. The traffic and the people remind me of how live New York City is and I would assume from this street view that George Street is just as lively. When you look straight up you can see high-rise buildings very reminiscent of New York. When you go North down George St. you can see buildings with big advertisements on the windows and retail stores. Cars drive in the opposite direction compared to our way of driving. Looking straight ahead it seems as though you’re engulfed by buildings. Public transportation seems to have several stops at points of interests, one thing I miss about living in New York. The further I go along the more George St also looks similar to China Town. It seems to be the business district of Sydney; I can’t really tell if some of the high-rise buildings are residential or business buildings.

[Shannon Hines]

Boston, MA happens to be one of my favorite cities in America which I know is shocking for a New Yorker to say. The city has so much history packed in to such a small place. One of my favorite streets to walk down is Commonwealth Ave. At one end of the avenue you start at Boston Commons and walk down to the corner at Massachusetts Ave and that is the path that I followed with Google Street View.

As you follow the path you can see how the older architecture of the city blends with the new. There are many newer buildings that try to hold on to the older feel. Unlike many of the other cities in Boston, Commonwealth Ave is mostly residential. Dividing the road is a large area of grass that looks like a park in the middle of the road. It divides the entire length of the adding some much needed green to the city. As you look at the street view you can see some of the features like the rod iron fences and the brown stones that line the streets. Though there is little space between the buildings the green in the center still gives you the feel of living in a park.

If you look over the tree lines you can see some of the skyscrapers that now dot the Boston skyline. You can see how the older feel of the city plays in with the new expansion to the city. You can still feel the history in the city as you walk down Commonwealth but you are able to still see the changes that have come. Though you cannot really experience this in Google street view, compared to the rest of the city Commonwealth Ave is much quieter than the rest of the city. If you do look at the street view you can see that there is less traffic on the street, both cars and pedestrians. This is just one of the many charms of the city of Boston and Commonwealth Ave.

[Michael Dykema]

http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&q=tower%20city%20cleveland&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wl

I selected for my stroll an area of downtown Cleveland, my grandmother’s hometown but a city which I have only visited once before. Last November, I spent an afternoon in this area, but I don’t really know it. The area I will cover is about four or five blocks heading east along Superior Avenue between West 9th Street (just east of the Cuyahoga River as is enters Lake Erie) and Ontario Street. The street names area clear reference to the image of Cleveland as a Great Lakes metropolis. Superior Avenue is a broad street with a drab concrete divider down its center. It is lined primarily by large office buildings and parking lots which appear to have replaced buildings torn down, presumably during the dark days of Cleveland’s economic collapse in the 1970s and 1980s.
The first notable site on the route is on the southeast corner of Superior and West Huron Road, where a rather undistinguished office building stands. This building is the Federal Court building and is named for Carl Stokes, former mayor of Cleveland and the first African American elected mayor of a major American city. Unfortunately, the building isn’t much to look at. A block further along the path, at the intersection with Prospect Avenue, is a location of note to teachers: the main branch of the Cleveland Public Library, which occupies a dignified building near the intersection with Huron.
As we reach West 3rd Street, the neighborhood becomes a bit less stodgy and drab. The parking lots are now landscaped, and the well-appointed Renaissance Hotel has cars waiting at the side entrance. At the corner across from Public Square, the Soldiers and Sailors monument constitutes a focal point for four blocks of public green space. Over the entire area tower several huge early-20th century office buildings, reminders of Cleveland’s place as a center of industry and trade. Here, on the lower floors, are a shopping center and, underground, the transit hub of Cleveland, where the subway and streetcar lines converge.
This stroll has taken us from the drab, gray image of Cleveland that has become current in the public imagination since the 1970s to the small, but still lively heart of its downtown, a token of what the city once was and hopes to be again.

[Lindsey Dowling]

I choose to take a digital trip to the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, Tuscany, Italy. The Uffizi is bordered by the Piazza della Signoria, the Via della Ninna, the Piazzale degli Uffizi and the Lungano Generale Armando Diaz. The Uffizi is on one side of the Lungano and the Arno River lines the other side. Just up the Lungano from the Uffizi is the Ponte Vecchio or the “old bridge.”

The Uffizi originally housed art collected by the Medici family and continued to expand even after their reign. The art housed in the Uffizi today includes work by Leonardo Da Vinci and the “Birth of Venus” by Botticelli. The best way to prepare you for the breathtaking works in the Uffizi is to stroll through the Piazza della Signoria beginning in its North West corner. The piazza is filled with statues depicting events such as the “Rape of the Sabine Women” and a large fountain of Neptune. There is also a copy of the David (the original is kept in Florence at the Academia). Once you stroll through the sculptures in the Piazza, you should make your way to the south east corner where the Piazza della Signoria intersects with the Piazzale degli Uffizi, you will stand directly below the Palazzo Vecchio, which was the Medici Palace. As you travel down this road you will notice more statues lining either side of the piazzale. On your left hand side just past the Palazzo will be the entrance into the Uffizi Gallery. Directly in front of you are the Ardo River and the Ponte Vecchio.

In Florence the roofs are almost always made of terra cotta. From a birds eye view you see a sea of red roofs. Around the Uffizi you can see the large Ponte Vecchio crossing the dark green River Arno, the Uffizi is the longest building in the immediate area and is larger than the entire Piazza della Signoria. The Piazza is the grey color of cement surround by the rust colored roofs of the buildings. You can also see the circle in which the fountain of Neptune sits just to the north east of the Palazzo Vecchio.

From the street view you can see into the outside galleries housing many Renaissance statues. This Piazza della Signoria continues to be where the citizens and government of Florence interact. Therefore there are many restaurants, banks and hotels surrounding the immediate area. The pictures of the street also show how bustling this area is. This area is also frequently under construction in order to preserve its history. You can see cranes as well as scaffolding and tarps as you travel this route.

[Jonathan S. List]

Boundaries:

-- The boundaries I am using is very simply the beltway that encircles the center of Mexico City. In most cities I have visited in person, areas inside of a beltway, especially when the beltway is within the urban area of the city, are very densely populated and interesting.

Pathway:

-- Shared doc, link is here. This pathway is through some very narrow streets, and back areas of towns.

link

Birds Eye view:

-- The city as a whole looks like a city that was never really designed to become a modern city. The streets are setup very much like one would expect the setup of a city entirely designed by people coming and going. That is, think of and old west style town that grew and developed as people moved into the area, with little consideration of how traffic flow might be adjusted. There are a lot of one-way, very narrow streets and streets that dead-end randomly. The city has apparently worked on adjusting itself by adding a beltway which allows for easier travel around the city.

Description:
-- A lot of VW Bugs and older cars. Many of the cars are much smaller than American's prefer. On more main roads, cars are much larger and much more modern. Many semi-trucks present. Shops are randomly setup, that is, the idea of a concentrated shopping center is not evident on this tour. Graffiti is evident in all areas of this tour. Main roads and side roads alike. This tour passes several automotive repair shops. On a 4 lane (one way) street, several grocery stores and a gas station are present. City center, where the map places the words, "Ciudad de Mexico" is a large square with several smaller boutique shops.

Themes:
-- Mexico City seems to be generally impoverished. There seems to be a disparity between wealthy and poor. The cars that look nice are very new, while the cars that are older look beaten up and very used. There are many mechanics in this section of town, which would indicate that there are many broken down automobiles. Many of the shops advertised tires, which may indicate that tires are regularly flattened by traffic in the city.

[Aaron Munz]

I explored Honolulu Hawaii in the Waikiki section of the city. This project nested well with some summer travel planning and I hoped to get an idea of what to expect beyond the resorts on the beach.

I began my ‘trip’ by dropping in at 2484 Mountain View Drive, Star Trek style, “Beam me up Scotty” and I’m next to a lot that is in the beginning stages of construction surrounded by a chain link fence with pallets of building materials stacked inside. The surrounding buildings appear to be 10 to 20 story apartment buildings so I assume that the new construction will be as well.
I turn right at the end of the street going the wrong way down a one way street heading southwest towards the beach on Liliuokalani Ave. The street is a few blocks removed from the tourist hotels along the beach and some small residential homes and three story apartments are interspersed among the larger apartment buildings. Empty trash cans are in front of each residence between lined parking spaces, must be the afternoon of trash day. There are sidewalks on both sides of the street with a few pedestrians out on a warm sunny day, dressed in casual shorts a t-shirts.

Upon crossing Kuhio Ave the construction and feel of the neighborhood changes dramatically. We have crossed a main thoroughfare demarking the edge of the tourist zone. The landscaping in the small urban flower boxes and small squares hold well manicured tropical plants and small trees. There are many more pedestrians, including a very fit local wearing a bikini walking two small white dogs. The sidewalk is expanded and is no longer concrete, instead it’s composed of upscale cut stone. A newspaper shop with displays of bottled water stands on the northwest corner of the intersection.

As I continue south I look back north and can see the mountains in the distance framed by the urban canyon of hotels. It’s hot and passing a Blue Moon delivery truck is making me thirsty. I might take a break at a corner café to get a beverage. After weaving through fat tourists wearing ugly t-shirts proclaiming their previous travels and fanny packs probably filled with candy bars I make it to the beach bordered by Kalakaua Ave and a wide sidewalk separating the ocean side from the row of high rise luxury hotels. It’s amazing how much the socioeconomics of an area can change in the 5 or 6 bl

[Charley Norkus]

GOOGLE STREET VIEW – MOSCOW, I mean, CHAGRIN FALLS, OHIO

I chose Moscow, Ohio because I remember it to be the smallest school district in that state. Not having any luck selling software to the big districts, I thought I’d try the other end of the spectrum, so I called, but never visited, the superintendent who also just happened to be the principal of the one school there, a combination K-12 with 102 students. Moscow is about 20 miles SE of Cincinnati, taking up 2,000 square feet, sandwiched between the Ohio River on the west and Highway 52 running N-S on the east. Apparently Moscow is too insignificant; the closest the Googlemobile has come is Highway 52, home of the River of Life Assembly of God.


So I tried Chagrin Falls, Ohio – a place touted to be a Thomas Kincaid postcard of a town from long ago, located just southeast of Cleveland. Chagrin Falls is not much bigger than Moscow, but the Google people apparently drove around quite a bit, probably due to its reputation. I started in the middle of town, just south of the busiest part of town, Main Street from N. Franklin heading north three blocks to West Orange Street. About midway through the second block, Main Street crosses over the Chagrin River, right where the falls on either side of the road are the most picturesque.

Turning left from N. Franklin onto Main, the most important site, in my opinion, is immediately on the right, Joey’s Italian Restaurant, but I’ll continue. Two lanes in both directions, lots of shops, all made of brick, lots of red, white, and blue bunting from the Gilded Age, street lights made to look like old fashion gas lamps curve over the lanes. Now at the bridge over the rocky falls, it’s lined with that semicircular patriotic bunting. Looking to the right, can see the calm, dammed water; to the left, lots of trees and people looking over the edge of the bridge presumably at the falls. (Can’t see the &*$%#@!! falls from Google Street View.) More brick, nothing over three stories, very 1800’s-ish. One must get out of the car to see the falls, so the town hopes everyone will then visit the popcorn shop (right next to falls, Starbuck’s (of course), and other tourist traps along the Main Street. So much for Thomas Kinkaid.

[David Moseley]

I have chosen to take a digital stroll through several key streets in the UK capital, London. The specific area that I will analyze is bounded by St. Margaret St./Abingdon St on the west, Bridge St. on the north, The Victoria Tower Gardens on the south and on the East by the Thames River. This area contains the Houses of Parliament and the London landmark, Big Ben.

This section of London is a kind of pie shaped plot narrowing as it moves south. There is little hint as to the imposing nature of the buildings from the sky. The width of the streets is the only clue that this is an important area.

Tracing from the northeast, the viewer glimpses Big Ben just before crossing over the Westminster Bridge. On the bridge, the full view of The Members of Parliament’s gothic architecture comes into the picture.

On the corner of Bridge St. and St. Margaret St., there are hordes of pedestrian traffic that flow into the grounds of the historic structure. From there, the virtual walk moves from St. Margaret St. to Abingdon St. as the street slants to the east. The road becomes less populated with pedestrians as it moves down to the Gardens.

If you cross the Thames, there is no view of the block in question from Google Maps street view. There are pictures submitted by users that include a riverside view, but no street gives an unobstructed view.

There is a break in the flow of street view photos in between St. Margaret St. and Abingdon St. This could be due to the unorthodox flow of traffic or the fact that access is limited to non-pedestrians. Whatever the case, it is far more difficult to navigate across the building from the west.

[Cliff Haley]

For my digital stroll, I chose to walk a block in Amsterdam bound by four streets (plus three canals). My area is defined as the block between Prinsenstraat(to the south), Prinsengracht(to the west), Bouwersgracht(to the north), and Keizrsgracht (to the east).

The area is bound on three sides by canals. From the birds eye view we can tell that this frontage is important. The buildings are narrow, maximizing the number of buildings with canal access. The center of the block is almost entirely garden and green space. Foot access to the block is available only by the bridges on Prinsenstraat and Bowersgracht, though anyone possessing of a boat could enter the block at almost any point. The block is near the city center and near the central axis of city transport, the highway and the shipping channel. Despite being a peninsula, and in one way isolated, the block is the outer edge of the ring of islands surrounding the city center, and likely a high traffic area.

My starting point is on the corner of Prinsenstraat and Prinsengracht. I walked north towards Bowersgracht.

The first thing you notice is that despite the imposing façade of the buildings, the life of the block really extends out into the canal with pretty houseboats lining the canal and a row of parking and a narrow street between the canal and the buildings. One also notices the plethora of bicycles, probably due to the narrow streets.

The buildings are mostly older, narrow, though there are a few modern apartment buildings built into the row of older homes.

Turn the corner onto Bouwersgracht. All of the buildings on Prisengracht appeared to be residences, no signage, and looking in the windows (yes I am looking into people’s windows) I see no signs of commercial activity. That I can peer into people’s homes is an interesting aspect of this “Walk”. The street level is actually below the first floor of most buildings. But with my view from the extended google camera attached to the car I actually have a privileged view that most passer Byers would not.

Making my way down Bouwersgracht I am surprised that I can not make out more visible commercial space. I expected with the foot traffic increased by the near by bridges I would see more. Mostly residential with maybe a restaurant or a hotel.

Turning the corner and proceeding down Keizrsgracht, one notices a difference. This street, facing the city center, has more architectural embellishment, has government buildings, banks, hotels, and a few elegant homes. Its façade is bright and flashy whereas the opposite façade, Prinsengracht was more sober.


Turning onto Prisenstraat, I see commercial spaces. Clothing stores, bars, bakeries. I also see more through traffic of bicyclists. Prisenstraat does not have a canal bordering and has stores and shops on both sides.


The block I toured is primarily residential. This could be for a number of reasons; the streets with canals (with the gracht suffix) are residential or low impact commercial, maybe a subtle hotel or bank. As already mentioned these streets have limited access, reducing the attractiveness for consumer-oriented businesses. The rents could also be higher on the canal streets, making commercial space less attractive. These are all market interpretations, though cultural and even legal reasons for the difference are possible. With out knowing the history of Amsterdam, I have little to go on. I can say that now I really want to go as it’s beautiful.