Sunlight Labs

App URL

http://www.greenspacemap.com/

Source URL

http://github.com/flafeer/GreenSpace/

Description

Environmental concerns impact millions of U.S. citizens, including homeowners and prospective homeowners, real estate investors and developers and state and local municipalities.

It often takes time and extensive research to find an answer to the most basic question: “is my land, my home, my business, my school or my prospective building site within proximity of any known environmental factors?”

Using information from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that is made public by data.gov, GreenSpace Map provides an immediate answer to this question. It allows you to view the EPA’s Featured Environmental Interests list in your area to determine the proximity of reported sites within any 20-mile radius.

The GreenSpace Map allows users to immediately find out how close they are to Featured Interests Sites as reported by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

GreenSpace Map gives users the ability to easily determine their location’s proximity to six general classes of EPA reporting sites including: Brownfield Sites Superfund Sites TRIS (Toxic Release Inventory System) NPDES (National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System) Large Quantity Generator Sites Other Sites

This application is designed to work from a desktop or laptop browser or on the Apple iPhone or iPod Touch. The mobile version of GreenSpace Map takes advantage of the iPhone's built in GPS capability, enabling users to automatically relate the data to their immediate location as they move around.

Directions: GreenSpace Map Web Application:

GreenSpace Map is easy to use. Just follow these simple steps.

Go to the following URL: http://www.greenspacemap.com

1. ENTER either the address, zip code, city or state of the location that you would like to check.

2. CHOOSE from the list of EPA categories that you would like to track.

3. VIEW sites within your selected location.

GreenSpace Map then provides a map of your location and plots all sites or activities within 20 miles of that location. In addition, you can click on any of those sites to get a detailed description and history of the specific site.

GreenSpace Map iPhone Application:

To use the iPhone application just follow these simple steps:

1. For the initial use, tap the green button to search your current location or enter a zip code, city, state or address into the white address box at the top of the screen. Then, tap the blue “Use This Location” button. For subsequent uses, you can change the address for the search location by tapping the magnifying glass icon in the lower right corner.

2. GreenSpace Map then provides a map of your location and pin plots all sites that are in the area you selected. (You can use standard iPhone finger controls to zoom in or out and to move the map. By shaking the phone, you reset the map to the original view.) By tapping on a color coded/alpha numeric coded pin, an abbreviated name bar appears for that specific location.

3. Tap the bar again to see the full address and distance from your current location with built-in links to the EPA for more detailed information.

4. By tapping the grey list button at the bottom of the map screen, you can see an organized, color-coded list of all sites, starting by those closest to you.

5. From either the map or list screen, you can tap the blue “i” button to be taken to our Preferences Screen. Here, you will see a list of the six EPA categories. You can slide the button next to each to toggle your exact interest or preferences on and off.
   

The free GreenSpace Map iPhone application is available at:

http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=325075915&mt=8

Value Proposition

Environmental concerns are significant across the country to consumers, government and businesses. By taking data supplied by the federal government through data.gov, and converting it into both web and mobile applications, we are helping citizens have easier and more seamless access to this data and make more valuable use of the information. While some of the information reported on the EPA website such as TRI data and Air Quality is reported in map form, our solutions allows the user to access all of the Featured Environmental Interests Sites in one central and easy to use location and through a mobile device. We believe that having all of the Featured Environmental Interest Sites within one Greenspace Map solution gives citizens a more valuable experience with an easier to use interface.

Key Criteria Transparency: GreenSpace Map helps citizens quickly and easily use existing EPA information in a clear, graphical format that color codes multiple sites in a Google map. It provides users to see all of the Featured Environmental Interests Sites in one application while allowing users to add or subtract different site classes to customize data delivery. In addition, users can use a mobile device to see data in a format and presentation that did not exist before the development of the GreenSpace Map solution.

Permanence: As the public’s awareness and concerns about the potential impact of environmental issues on health, and ultimately on the value of investments in residential, commercial and municipal real estate continues to grow, so will the value of the GreenSpace Map application. With more than 95 million active mobile data users currently in the U.S. market and with yearly growth rates in the double digits for the next five years1, we are confident that the GreenSpace Map mobile application will capitalize on these strong adoption trends and create widespread interest among various communities. We also feel that the application could be used as a valuable teaching resource in environmental science and government policy classes at all levels, thus spurring new awareness as students become familiar with the application.

Design & Visualization: The GreenSpace Map website and mobile application are designed to minimize excess. We intentionally used simple, clean graphics, a combination of color codes and alpha numeric codes to simplify understanding of the vast amount of data contained in the EPA data set within each screen. We disciplined ourselves throughout the development process to incorporate easy-to-use navigation so that the web application and mobile application can be used by anyone with a basic understanding of computers or smart phones. To streamline our application, we built in frequent links to enable uses quick access to more detailed EPA information when they want more in-depth information about a particular site.

Technology

The GreenSpace Map application was developed utilizing a variety of readily available technologies including: Google Maps Google Web Tool Kit Google App Engine iPhone SDK

This application was developed by New Road Solutions, LLC

New Road Solutions is a Virginia-based company that specializes in strategies and solutions for government customers, commercial customers, marketing agencies and clients, industry associations and non-profit organizations moving into the 2.0 world or re-thinking their approach to 2.0. We focus on complete solutions: concept, design, web architecture, content management, deployment, hosting, maintenance and refresh. Our experience includes: - Strategic analysis and definition of 2.0 solutions - Social media to reach customers or constituents. - Modern web design and web architecture. - Software as a Service/Cloud Computing. - Award winning content management solutions. - Web and Mobile application development.

For more information, visit us at: www.newroadsolutions.com.

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.

This application was submitted by New Road Solutions, LLC on August 5, 2009