Free Neighborhood Boundary Data
Zillow Labs recently announced free availability of their neighborhood boundary data sets. Coverage is currently available for 42 states. We have not yet had an opportunity to review the accuracy of these data sets, but thought it would be helpful to share these with our members.
http://www.zillow.com/labs/NeighborhoodBoundaries.htm
Here is the information published by Zillow.com
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The Zillow data team has created a database of nearly 7,000 neighborhood boundaries in the largest cities in the U.S. And we'd like to share them with you! We're sharing these neighborhoods under a Creative Commons license to allow people to use and contribute to our growing database.
Now comes the fine print: You are free to use the files in this database in applications as long as you attribute Zillow when you use it. You may also make your own changes to the database files and distribute them, as long as you provide them under the same kind of license and give Zillow attribution. The neighborhood shapes are available below, zipped up in the Arc Shapefile format.
Zillow's API is very open. It allows developers to see the actual longitude and latidude points that make up the cordinates of the boundary (neighborhood) shape file. This is a huge step foward and a step back.
Step FWD:- Allows for developers to work with the actual lon/lat data, resulting in a application running at its full potential.
Step Back:- No "standard" protocol or guidelines that define the neighborhood names or shape files.
For an example of a standardized shape file. Take a look at the Cartographic Boundary Files of zip codes and states posted by the U.S. Census Bureau, Geography Division. Neighborhood shape files are less specific and often based on opinion.
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