Ask HN: Does a map / database of city line utilities exist?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40795692

by uptownhr • 2 years ago

1 6 2 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

I'd love to see where all the city utility lines go. For example, roads, water/sewage, electricity and internet. Does one exists where you can enable them as layers on a map?

gnabgib• 2 years ago

You're going to have to be more specific about continent / country / county|province|state / city|town|locality

uptownhr3• 2 years ago

I was thinking within the US

bdcrazy• 2 years ago

I would love to see all those things myself. Part of my job this past week was inquiring with local jurisdictions about utilities to request utility atlases and other existing condition reports. Unfortunately, this info can be hard to find, inaccurate and inaccessible. There are many pros and cons for showing/hiding utility data etc. <p> If you're interested in getting started with roads, Local GIS shapefiles and tiger databases can be found for much of the US. Not too familiar globally. <p> Downloading a database from the following site and opening with QGIS or similar might be something to start with: https://www.census.gov/geographies/mapping-files/time-series...

uptownhr3• 2 years ago

Thanks for the resource. Never used QGIS so I may have questions.

solardev• 2 years ago

In the US, this is typically handled by counties and municipalities at the local government level.

Look for "whatever place GIS" or give your town hall a call. They will often be able to provide this (if they have such a department) either in an online map viewer (usually ESRI web maps) or as GIS shapefiles that you can open with the FOSS tool QGIS.

If you find what you're looking for but need help viewing it, let me know here and I'll try to help.

uptownhr3• 2 years ago

Thanks will start asking and see where I land

Ask HN: Does a map / database of city line utilities exist?

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