State of the Map Europe 2025

5 Things I Learned Plotting Every House in Brighton & Hove
2025-11-14 , Node

What are the lessons of an epically stupid quest to get every house in Brighton & Hove mapped? Can community be rekindled? Is enthusiasm dead? Who has the biggest extension in the city?


In 2020/21, the UK had Covid restrictions on travel and socialising. These caused me to re-explore my local area on foot, and of course do some mapping. Brighton & Hove was a very early subject area for OSM and since then hadn't changed much. I wondered, while I wandered, could I rekindle my own and other people's enthusiasm to make the map of B&H better? And what would I learn about my own city?


Talk keywords:

community, housing, armchair mapping, surveying

Runs a UK flood risk consultancy, was an OSMUK Director, loves Open Data