A Mechanism to Create Community Maps for Non-technical Users

The mapping change for sustainable communities project is designed to assist community groups towards greater participation in local decision making by providing them with an interactive map showing local information. The maps are managed and moderated by each community and display themes of their choice- much like a map-based community forum. Although initially targeted at only four community groups, interest in the project resulted in the requirement to provide maps for a much wider audience, ranging from faith groups to local doctors´ surgeries. Each map requires differently-themed data. The project is managed by staff from London21 (a London-based network of community groups). Given a lack of in-house programming skills (Google Maps, MySQL, JavaScript, PHP), a method is required to allow them to set up new community sites and to add custom themes to the sites as required by each group. This paper presents a technical account of this mechanism, along with a brief description of the project and its outcomes.