Be prepared to see London in a new light thanks to a website developed by researchers at UCL.
Angela Saini
Researchers at the Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis (CASA) at University College London have launched a website called MapTube London, which promises to reveal the capital’s hidden economic and social layers.
The team uses census data and information from the Mayor of London’s office to build multicoloured breakdowns of demographic data such as population, ethnicity and wealth, which can all be viewed in layers over an aerial map of London powered by Google Maps.
‘MapTube’ shares a key quality with the video site of similar name—users are encouraged to upload their own information. But, says CASA senior research fellow Andrew Hudson-Smith, the name has different origins. “Big maps, like ordnance survey maps, often come rolled up in tubes,” he says. “This site is like one of those tubes.”
The young department has bucked the scientific norm by allowing its work to be freely accessed by the public. “MapTube London is a way for scientists to easily share thematic maps. It goes above and beyond Google Maps,” says Hudson-Smith.
It already has 69 maps, covering everything from the Irish population across the city to the actual routes of Tube lines, but the team hopes that more information will be fed into it over time. “We need people to upload their own maps. It is perfect for academics and for councils, who have a wealth of information hidden away.”
A MapTube London overlay showing Tube lines and drug crime for North London. Darker shades of green indicate a greater incidence of drug offences.
“It’s not high-end geographical information. It’s aimed at the ordinary user,” he adds. The interface is user-friendly, allowing anyone to register for free, access all maps and overlay different information on the same grid. Using this visual representation, seemingly mundane statistics can throw up fascinating results.
“It’s particularly interesting where people cluster ethnically. You can even identify individual streets where people tend to live. For example, the Sikh population has a clear split across east and west London. Whatever people say, at many levels we are a segregated city. People can load this site up to see London as it really is,” says Hudson-Smith.
Richard Milton, a research fellow at CASA, has made his own observations. “Many people, perhaps unsurprisingly, live in tight clusters around tube lines. This is especially clear on the District Line between central London and Richmond,” he says. Try it for yourself by superimposing the population density map on the tube map, and you’ll spot a very thin and dense huddle of life along the District Line.
MapTube London builds on the national MapTube, which went online less than three weeks ago. One of the problems it encountered was patchy data, with the south of Britain far better covered than the north. MapTube London might suffer the same problem if people don’t volunteer enough information.
But the researchers are confident that there are still plenty of untapped sources of maps that cover the whole city. “I’ve always been interested in air pollution data,” says Richard Milton, “It would be interesting to see it displayed live on MapTube London as it comes out of pollution sensors.”
Meanwhile Andrew Hudson-Smith would one day like to exploit the Metropolitan Police’s crime statistics. “Wouldn’t it be great to see people’s perception of crime mapped over actual crime in London?” he says.