The small town of Nanaimo on Vancouver Island may be a world leader in getting information on to Google Earth, according to a Time magazine story, How Google Earth Ate Our Town.
Residents can, for example, follow fire engines on Google Maps, and even the cemeteries are being mapped. Time says:
The city's planning department has, over the past five years, steadily fed Google a wealth of information about its buildings, property lines, utilities and streets. The result is earth.nanaimo.ca, a clearinghouse of city data viewed through the robust and freely available Google Earth 3D mapping program. The site sorts and maps every business, from restaurants to car dealers, while a click of the mouse brings up the lot size for every property in the city, including the building permit number and zoning history. Homeowners can use the facility to find out specific information about their garbage collection schedule, while the city's 150-year-old downtown core is rendered in 3D and dotted with 360-degree panoramas.
But it seems the idea has not yet had much impact. The story says:
Good for tourists, perhaps, and a real live test-bed for the company's ambitions to Google-ize far larger metropolises. But the reality in Nanaimo is that many locals are entirely unaware of the new electronic pathways for navigating their city.
What do you think? What information could Google Earth offer that would change your life?
Update: Apologies for the typo in the original headline, which read "Googe"...
