

A first step towards freeing London’s data - robin_reala
http://data.london.gov.uk/

======
mjs
Hey, that's some quality XML they're pumping out there. From their population
data:

    
    
      <ROWSET>
        <ROW>
          <Area_Code>00AA</Area_Code>
          <Area_Name>City of London</Area_Name>
          <Persons-1801>129000</Persons-1801>
          <Persons-1811>121000</Persons-1811>
          <Persons-1821>125000</Persons-1821>
          <!-- ... -->
        </ROW>
      </ROWSET>
    

[http://data.london.gov.uk/datastore/package/historic-
census-...](http://data.london.gov.uk/datastore/package/historic-census-
population)

Embedding the year into the element name, useful that.

~~~
charlesmarshall
you could send them a tweet <http://twitter.com/londondatastore> and ask them
to fix it

I've sent them a couple of bugs / broken links and they've fixed & replied
within a few minutes.

edit: they've just tweeted about the xml structure so hopefully will sort it
out soon.

~~~
charlesmarshall
o, they also have a google group for things that need more than 140 chars -
<http://groups.google.com/group/londondatastore>

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spuz
I'd love it if they released some real-time data. Imagine an iPhone app that
gave you the position of every tube train and bus in the city.

~~~
wallflower
It is good that mobiles do not work in the tube, as real-time position
information is a security concern.

~~~
simonw
I never really understood why that would be the case. What can people do with
that information that they couldn't do otherwise?

~~~
wallflower
I was implying more GPS-synchronized bomb triggers.

~~~
simonw
Sounds like more of a movie plot threat than anything worth worrying about. If
you really want to do that attaching your own GPS device to the bottom of a
bus (or just having an observer with a mobile phone) is easy enough as it is.

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DrJokepu
I didn't expect that the current Mayor of London, Boris Johnson would do a
decent job when he got elected. Surprisingly enough, he actually does.

~~~
gaius
It's interesting to see the difference in terms of corporate culture. Ken
Livingstone saw himself as hugely important, he would fly his entourage
(always first class) to Latin America and sign "treaties" with foreign
governments when he should have been, I dunno, _running London_ like he was
elected to do. He was completely out of touch, like the CEO of a huge company
that's lost it's way. Like the Detroit automakers flying a private jet to DC
to ask for a bailout from the taxpayer.

Boris doesn't make a fuss, he flies in cattle class, he rides his bike around
the city (and around city hall!) and always seems to be in a good mood, and he
_gets stuff done_ at an incredible rate, precisely because he's not spending
all his time making sure everyone knows how important he is. He's the startup
mayor.

~~~
samstokes
Upvoted for interesting perspective. Do you have sources?

(That's not meant to be combative - I've also been pleasantly surprised by
Boris so far.)

~~~
gaius
Well, Ken's entourage of 85 people:

[http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23421491-kens...](http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23421491-kens-
grand-tour-of-india.do)

Boris flies economy to Beijing:

[http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard-
mayor/article-2354228...](http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard-
mayor/article-23542289-comment-upgrade-politics.do)

There are plenty like this. Ken's extravagance and the favours he dished out
to his cronies were legendary.

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crad
Too bad they're not so open at the Royal Mail. Regardless of the wikileaks.org
publishing of the data, their charging money for a canonical table of postal
code data is shameful at best.

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charlesmarshall
as the pagination on the a-z seems a bit broken, they do have a full listing
page of whats planned on launch - <http://data.london.gov.uk/datastore/data-
packages-launch>

edit: sorry, that page is list of whats planned for launch, not whats there
now

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zeynel1
Does anyone know if this type of data is released by New York City?

