from Hacker News

Predict Economic Indicators with OpenStreetMap

by merusame on 8/25/18, 9:43 AM with 13 comments

  • by thinkingemote on 8/26/18, 9:37 AM

    This is an interesting analysis and can only really be accurate if we assume the level of mapping and number of mappers in an area is the same from area to area. I don't think this is true.

    However, its possible statistics to find the number of mappers and the level of activity in an area from OSM, so a better analysis should normalise for this too.

    But! This only considers OSM from the point of view of a "hobby mapper" - the old school view of individuals going out with GPS units. Today a growing proportion mapping is contributed by governments, open data sets, batch imports, businesses and mapping teams, all of which vary by geography too.

  • by shirakawasuna on 8/26/18, 5:38 AM

    The fact that something is mapped at all is something of an economic indicator, since OpenStreetMap mappers do the heavy lifting, are likely to be big nerds with free time / retired, and are going to map their local areas preferentially.

  • by shady-lady on 8/26/18, 2:59 PM

    Step 1 should be verify the information you're counting as facts.. re: McDonalds & ingredients

    > This means the same items are made in the same way with the same ingredients in very different economies around the world, making the Big Mac...

    This is provably not true. (without any prejudice against BigMac as PPP indicator)

    https://www.huffingtonpost.com/the-daily-meal/big-macs-aroun...

  • by stephengillie on 8/26/18, 4:50 AM

    Open-source map providers have no economic incentive to guide drivers down streets containing the businesses who pay more.

  • by John_KZ on 8/26/18, 3:49 PM

    The idea of using (mappable/recordable) public amenities per capita as a measure of prosperity is good.

    However, even discounting for the massive regional biases in OSM mapping, having 10 universities per capita doesn't mean anything. The qualitative part is extremely important on all aspects. Universities, hospitals, parks, even benches..

    Using aerial photography you can probably infer things about the quality of the roadwork and efficiency of transportation, parking space availability, recreational park "quality", rooftop utilization etc. But with incomplete/heavily biased mapping and no quality index this is pretty much useless.

  • by Someone on 8/26/18, 12:16 PM

    As it stands, all metrics include a hidden “quality of OpenStreetMap data” feature that may explain significant fractions of the significance of features.

    So, I think they should try to compensate for that. How? I wouldn’t know.

  • by doombolt on 8/26/18, 5:35 AM

    Their second strong correlator is bicycle parking. Meaning you really have to understand the context for such correlations.