OUseful.Info, the blog…

A few weeks ago, I posted several maps visualising MPs’ expenses (Visualising MPs’ Expenses Using Scatter Plots, Charts and Maps). A couple of days later, I created another map that I didn’t post at the time, partly becuase it’s very approximate, but it does demonstrate something I haven’t logged on OUseful.info before – how to do overlays on Google maps…

So here’s a the link: MPs expenses block map.

The blocks are defined using the bounding box co-ordinates for each MP’s constituency as made available by TheyWorkForYou (specifically, using the getGeometry API call).

The data set for the map was constructed by adding bounding box data for each constituency to a Dabble DB table, and then joining it with expenses data from another table.

PS following this tweet from @ElrikMerlin “Oh, that IS cool. What happens if you colour boxes by party and simply have area proportional to amount?” I knocked up a quick proportional symbol map that shows the total travel expenses claimed by party, where the circle diameter is proportional to the total expenses and the colour denotes the party.

But’ that’s enough for now… this is supposed to be a holiday weekend, after all…!