Map of the Month: Where Are All The New Houses

Dan Cookson's recent map of new homes built in England over the last decade is a beautiful and incisive visualization that represents the decade of development from 2007 to 2017, highlighting hotspots of new construction. The map includes the ability to toggle layers representing administrative boundaries clusters and the UK's unique Green Belt zones, providing deeper insight for planners and policy makers looking for societal change and impact of policy decisions. This tool can be a useful asset in navigating the changing real estate landscape. Dan's motivation for creating this visualization was born from a frustration that no one had properly identified where all the new homes built in England over the last decade had been built, and he used open data from the Land Registry to overcome this challenge. The map was built using the ONS Postcode Directory open data set, but some key information was missing, which limited its effectiveness. Despite these limitations, the map revealed several surprises, including that it was the first national-level mapping exercise of its kind, and that local councils were making use of it to inform their planning decisions. Dan sees great benefits in using CARTO for mapping interesting data, particularly in terms of ease of use and sharing complex spatial datasets. He believes that governments, the real estate industry, and individuals can benefit from his map and deeper dive into open data by gaining better insights and understanding of place, and by inspiring others to create similar interfaces with information.