Map

The Illinois Network of Centers for Independent Living is a statewide coalition of the 23 regional centers for independent living (CIL) that serve Illinoisans with disabilities.  CILs promote full and equal access to our communities for those residents and visitors with disabilities.  The mission of INCIL is to help these regional centers share resources and collaborate on statewide issues such as funding and advocacy.

The Megafone.net project invites "groups of people on the fringe of society to express their experiences and opinions through face-to-face meetings and mobile phones."  They've worked on some very cool projects but I'm most impressed with their urban accessibility maps (thanks to Urban Tick for the link).

The Geneva and Barcelona accessibility maps were created by giving GPS-enabled camera phones to people using wheelchairs.  Over a 6-month period, the mapmakers documented inaccessible barriers around their respective cities - each barrier was photographed and placed automatically on a mashup.  Common barriers include stairways, inaccessible curbs, escalators, broken elevators, etc.

The US Department of Health and Human Services recently announced a new open data initiative, the Community Health Data Initiative, intended to provide tools and data sets for community-level health analysis.  As the first part of this initiative, HHS and related government and non-government entities will be collecting and linking to existing data and resources, some of which we've already examined (such as the CountyHealthRankings.org mapplication).  The USDA contributes its county-level food and nutrition atlas, useful for visualizing statistics about food deserts, food access, and food insecurity issues, as well as physical activity statistics.  

The Global Action Atlas, a new online portal from National Geographic, allows visitors to explore environmental, humanitarian, and cultural projects around the world with an interactive map interface.  The site integrates social networking and provides a pathway for recruiting advocates, donors, and volunteers.  Well beyond sticking pushpins on a map, this portal aims to  "connect people and planet."