Trulia mazing (and a little scary)
Here’s a stunning little visualisation tool that popped up at Where 2.0 recently: animated maps of urban growth. Trulia is an American real estate search engine, but they’ve found some unexpected gold in their property assessor records: they reveal when a property was built, and thus can be used to show maps of development over time. The result is called Trulia Hindsight.
The data visualiser in me is impressed by the simplicity of the concept, the clarity of the interface, and the judicious use of transparency and animation to draw attention to where it’s needed. The urbanist in me is appalled by the rapidity of unsustainable sprawl in places like Texas and Las Vegas. It could be a useful tool for studying urbanisation, but in any case, it’s wonderful eye candy.