Community Maps contributors are finding creative ways to leverage their ArcGIS Online accounts. Many of these contributors have created well-designed web maps and applications to meet the goals and business needs of their organization.
Over the past couple of years we have seen more and more organizations adopt Community Maps and ArcGIS Online as a means to build, manage, and analyze geographic content. This has become especially apparent in the local government space. There are many reasons why local governments are adopting Community Maps, but some of the more compelling reasons are that these organizations can host their basemap content for free, they can leverage this content to build web maps and applications, and it’s easy to participate. Many organizations, including local governments, have large amounts of rich and ready to use data, but some lack the infrastructure in which to publish or host that data. In many cases these data are stored on private and internal networks. Community Maps is the way to get an organization’s information online without having to incur the cost of infrastructure and overhead an organization needs to get information out to a very broad audience.
I could provide examples all day, but will focus on a couple of organizations that are effectively using Community Maps and ArcGIS, by creating web maps and applications in order to provide information to their communities.
The County of San Bernardino, CA has stood up some very useful information by way of their ArcGIS online account.
These maps and applications are an effective way of getting information out to their constituents and customers. Everything from Capital Improvement Projects, Flood Control Facilities, and County Road Closures applications are effectively communicated with the county’s ArcGIS Online Organizational account.
This web app shows locations of capital improvement projects and serves as public resource for information. Construction details, locations and completion dates are among some of the information this app offers.
The City of Houston, TX is using their ArcGIS Organizational account to communicate recreational amenities, in this case the city’s bikeways.
This web app will not only help you navigate to your destination, it will also help you choose the appropriate bike route to use to get there. It even lends information about future expansion to the bikeway system.
Whatever type of information an organization wishes to share, it can be done through the combined use of authoritative Community Map content and your ArcGIS Organizational account.
This testimonial from an ArcGIS Community user highlights one organization’s implementation of ArcGIS Online.
For information on how to participate in Community Maps, just click here.