[Qgis-user] Local Government for QGIS

Thu Jun 11 14:39:49 PDT 2015

Yeah. I used to intern in Pittsburgh, Pa's Dept of City Planning and there
were 3 people with Arc licenses that were always too busy to help the
neighborhood planners so we just emailed kml files around. (Much of my
summer was also (poorly) copying as-builts into Google Earth, because no
digital plans exist (or are owned by the city at any rate).  There is so
little that could make a huge improvement, and I want to help make those
improvements.

Like I said, I'm just starting up, but I am defiantly interested in putting
resources towards helping with the tooling and documentation.  Honestly,
from my opinion, the push back I've been getting is more that the people
who need these tools aren't technically inclined and don't have the
time/don't want to/don't think they can build up their GIS skills.

Beyond all of that, it's just insane that most of these municipalities
don't even own their data, the engineering firms they use have it all and
the municipalities never seem to want it, or would know what to do with it.

I'm trying to help on those two fronts.

Sorry if that was a bit long -- I'm excited!

Jim

On Thu, Jun 11, 2015 at 4:56 PM, Basques, Bob (CI-StPaul) <
bob.basques at ci.stpaul.mn.us> wrote:

> All,
>
> I’ve been having these same sorts of thoughts for a couple of years or
> so.  The local gov infrastructure seems like the right customer base to
> insert a providers model into.
>
> bobb
>
>
> > On Jun 11, 2015, at 3:43 PM, Randal Hale <
> rjhale at northrivergeographic.com> wrote:
> >
> > I've contemplated the same thing. I've been working on an openforestry
> template (which I'm failing to update on github) for that very reason (well
> two - to see if I could do it and because I want to provide an alternative).
> >
> > It's doable - it's just finding a coalition of the willing to start
> piecing it together. ESRI does have a lock with all those models: small
> government, utilities, forestry. Everyone gets roped in and then they get
> stuck. My current shaking my head moment is the ESRI Parcel Fabric model.
> You get so deep into that one on just the conversion work you'll never get
> out of it cleanly (I assume - I've never tried).
> >
> > QGIS is the desktop component to make that happen with a database
> backend (right now for me it's postgresql/postgis). Support is the next
> biggie - people want someone to call and yell at when it doesn't work.
> >
> > My .02 cents,
> > Randy
> >
> > On 06/11/2015 04:28 PM, Steve G wrote:
> >> I am not sure this is the correct forum for a start to this discussion,
> but
> >> I've been pondering this for a while and interested what others think.
> I
> >> work for local government in the U.S. and when people generally talk
> about
> >> GIS there is no doubt an automatic association with the ESRI ArcGIS
> >> platform.  And beyond GIS itself, the dominance that ESRI has is even
> more
> >> pronounced given the fact that many cities have implemented other
> related
> >> systems (permitting, computer aided dispatch, etc) that are identified
> >> business partners with ESRI.  Furthermore, the "GIS Local Government"
> track
> >> that ESRI developed has evolved to offer an "turnkey" approach for local
> >> government self-service to establish a robust geodatabase (Local
> Government
> >> Information Model), maps, apps, web services, etc.  This extends a COTS
> >> approach for local governments to establish, develop, and maintain a
> fairly
> >> complete GIS.  In my opinion, pure genius...because for a lot of small
> >> cities/governments with limited staff and budget, the turnkey approach
> is
> >> very appealing.  For city bureaucrats thinking about
> implementing/extending
> >> GIS, what they might think as little $$$ and you get all of this?
> >> Awesome...here's my money.
> >>
> >> HOWEVER, this approach has its drawbacks.  Long-term license/use costs,
> >> vendor lock-in, continuous waiting for someone at the company to fix
> >> something....well, the list goes on (just read any blog post supporting
> open
> >> source/FOSS).
> >>
> >> So, with the evolution of QGIS as a prevailing replacement/alternative
> for
> >> the other product, is anyone thinking about building more of a turnkey
> >> approach (database, maps, apps, web services, etc) geared to local
> >> governments?  I like the direction of the OpenGeo platform (and others)
> >> trying to provide the whole software stack, but still if a small local
> >> government wants to have a full fledged interactive GIS, it might seem
> like
> >> a lot of work to develop and maintain.
> >>
> >> I am interested in other thoughts...perhaps this belongs on a blog post
> >> somewhere more independent, but perhaps this can be a place to begin.
> >>
> >> Steve G.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> --
> >> View this message in context:
> http://osgeo-org.1560.x6.nabble.com/Local-Government-for-QGIS-tp5210489.html
> >> Sent from the Quantum GIS - User mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> Qgis-user mailing list
> >> Qgis-user at lists.osgeo.org
> >> http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/qgis-user
> >
> > --
> > -----------------
> > Randal Hale
> > North River Geographic Systems, Inc
> > http://www.northrivergeographic.com
> > 423.653.3611 rjhale at northrivergeographic.com
> > twitter:rjhale     http://about.me/rjhale
> > http://www.northrivergeographic.com/introduction-to-quantum-gis
> > Southeast OSGEO: http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Southeast_US
> >
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