The City of Chicago is on Github

Recently the City of Chicago released five datasets under an open source MIT License on GitHub.

The datasets released are:

1. Street center lines in Chicago
2. Building footprints in Chicago
3. Bike routes in Chicago
4. Pedway routes in Chicago
5. Bike rack locations in Chicago

They had this to say:

Anyone can now change the data when new bike paths are built, when roads are under construction, and new buildings are erected. When you want to improve our data, just fork it. Users are encouraged to improve data accuracy, combine it with other data sources, or download and use it for analysis or a new app.

Users have the right to download, modify, or use it for any purpose, including commercialization.

This means that projects like OpenStreetMaps will be able to add over 2GBs of Chicago data to their site. This also means that companies and Chicago startups who would like to leverage this data are able to as part of daily business.

Chicago’s Code For America Brigade also recently forked Code for America’s Adopt a Hydrant project to start Chicago Shovel’s Adopt-a-Sidewalk site as well.

If you have questions or would like to speak with the City of Chicago’s data team, email developers@cityofchicago.org or contact @ChicagoCDO on Twitter.

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