[HN Gopher] Show HN: A website that heatmaps your city based on ...
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Show HN: A website that heatmaps your city based on your housing
preferences
For the past few months, I've been working on a website that
answers two different questions: - Where in my city have the best
travel times to all the things and people I care about? - Given a
listing, how far is it from all the things and people I care about?
Personally this was fueled by my own frustrations when I was
apartment hunting in NYC. I was frustrating to have to juggle so
many Google Maps tabs when I was evaluating a listing, and it was
also annoying to not have full confidence that I was even searching
in the right places. I wanted to be close to work, a Trader Joe's,
and a major park. Given that public transportation networks can
sometimes make close things hard to get to and far things easy to
get to, it's not always obvious whether a neighborhood actually
even fits my criteria or not! The overarching goal of
theretowhere.com is to allow you to make more informed moving
decisions while also making things more convenient than they are
today. https://ibb.co/pBsX2HjN It can generate detailed travel
time breakdowns for individual listings and addresses, making it
easier to determine whether a listing is worth applying for without
juggling Google Maps tabs. This is great for questions like "How
far is this apartment from my friends, work and dancing gyms?"
https://ibb.co/mVBjwPrJ It also has the powerful ability to
heatmap a city based on which parts of it are close or not to the
people and places you care about. This is great for questions like
"Where in the city would I be reasonably close to work, friends and
a woodworking studio?" https://ibb.co/vCynPSRK You can add these
heatmaps to sites like Zillow and Streeteasy to make things super
convenient (this was very fun to make). The main thing that's on
my mind is whether this is useful or not. Like, is this something
you would actually use? I also have other ideas I'd like to
eventually intergrate into this (crime heatmaps, noise heatmaps,
etc)
Author : WiggleGuy
Score : 146 points
Date : 2025-02-07 18:23 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (theretowhere.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (theretowhere.com)
| shekhar101 wrote:
| This is really cool (and timely for me). Lovely work with the UX.
| No accounts, no nonsense. Kudos.
| Terr_ wrote:
| I've always liked the idea of combining distance criteria,
| especially when something is good for public transit to work, but
| not good in terms of walkability to anything I care about. (Some
| people walk for fun, I always seem to need an errand.)
|
| I recall that Walkscore used to have something like this, and
| then it went away, and then it showed up on some other housing
| site... I was always surprised the type of feature didn't get
| more popular.
|
| In terms of new features, there is a tricky problem of how to
| define things like "near a grocery store, the large kind, not
| that one tiny mini-mart". This brings in several overlapping
| challenges: How to get business locations and categorize them,
| how to allow the user to tweak that categorization or result, and
| how to efficiently turn a union of those the set of valid
| destinations into a combined region.
| WiggleGuy wrote:
| The "grocery store" problem is something I've been thinking
| about for a while, since it has two problems:
|
| - There are tons of grocery stores (efficiency of processing
| all of those)
|
| - Not all grocery stores are the same (supermarkets vs pricey
| luxury stores vs bodegas)
|
| I've been thinking of mass processing one-time then allowing
| the user to super-impose pre-made heatmaps onto thier existing
| heatmap.
| BytesAndGears wrote:
| That would be exactly what I need!
|
| Ideally something like 5min bike ride to the grocery store,
| 15min walk from a train station, and 30min drive to my in-
| law's house.
|
| It would be really interesting to do something like "10
| minute bike ride to 3 or more grocery stores". That would
| help reduce instances of niche specific stores, but also
| provides a much more useful variety.
|
| I'd love to be able to find places that have 2+ or 3+ grocery
| stores within somewhat reasonable distance, and same thing
| goes for restaurants. Really any restaurant.
| Terr_ wrote:
| I'm imagining:
|
| 1. User defines a "multi-location" spec, like "MyFastFood"
| as "Having [2] or more of [Fast Food] excluding [Taco
| Bell,]"
|
| 2. User defines a requirement for their heat map which
| references the multi-location, ex: "Within [30 minutes] to
| [walk] to [MyFastFood]"
|
| 3. Within the context of a particular [user's requirement]
| and broad [city/town/region], a 2D area/gradient can be
| generated, and cached for a rather considerable period
| given how slowly businesses open/close.
|
| Granted, that's the ambitious version. A simpler one would
| be to not support "at least X", and to combine the multi-
| location and the distance-rules all together into a single
| condition.
| tsigo wrote:
| I'm not in the market for a new home right now but I would
| absolutely use this in a future search. As it is now, it helped
| me confirm that my house is in a great location for everything I
| do regularly.
|
| It did seem to think that the closest "Bar" to me was a 19 minute
| drive, when in reality there are several within a 2 minute walk,
| however.
| mock-possum wrote:
| This is fun - waiting so long for the map to generate is a bit of
| a drag, but understandable.
| WiggleGuy wrote:
| I have a v2 of that algorithm coming this weekend! I expect it
| to make it MUCH faster :)
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| The available housing preferences may need to be reflected in the
| title.
|
| My desired heatmap is for 5+ beds/3+ baths at [price range]. It's
| okay this isn't that - but the _Housing Preferences_ descriptor
| indicates it might be.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| I had the same impression. Like Price per Acre.
|
| I didnt expect there to only be 1 type of constraint (travel
| time to a given location).
|
| I think emphasizing its purely based on distance would be
| clearer.
| aaroninsf wrote:
| Me too. I poked at the UX for a good few minutes trying to
| find out how to change the TYPE of constraint lol
| silisili wrote:
| I love the idea, but the data seems a bit off. I tested it in my
| little city, where I'm < 14 minutes by car from the grocery. It's
| actually a little quicker, but I'm going by Google Maps
| estimates.
|
| Setting a criteria of 15 mins by car, I'm far out in the gray.
| I'd have to drive a couple miles to even get in the red. It's
| only 6 miles away!
| cortesoft wrote:
| > It's only 6 miles away!
|
| Six miles is like a 30 minute drive when I am
| silisili wrote:
| Been there, done that, hopefully not again :).
|
| I was hoping 'little city' would have indicated, but I should
| have specified, there is never enough traffic here to move
| the estimates much. Speed limit is 35ish the whole way.
| WiggleGuy wrote:
| Yeah, different geo analysis providers have different
| weightings for travel time (turns, street density, etc). It can
| sometimes lead to inconsistencies like this, especially if they
| don't use GPS and proprietary data to correct things...
| duckapricottuba wrote:
| Would be nice to use conditions. Like, if there are multiple
| libraries in a city and I would like to evaluate being 15 minutes
| from any of them, have a condition able to be set -
|
| 15 minutes from: Library A OR Library B OR Library C
| WiggleGuy wrote:
| That actually is possible
|
| Heatmaps are split into criteria, and each of those criteria
| can contain multiple places.
|
| The criteria are OR clauses between any of the places, and the
| heatmap is an AND clause over all the criteria
|
| So to do what you'd like, you'd place the libraries in the same
| criteria
| jeffbee wrote:
| This is really neat. It would be cool if you exposed some
| parameters like walking speed. This shows that a trip I make
| daily in ~12 minutes is just barely within the 30 minute walking
| shell from my house. Also if you want to waste an insane amount
| of time and effort, you could integrate this with a digital
| elevation model to yield better biking times.
| madcaptenor wrote:
| I put my wife's work location and my own in it and it correctly
| showed me that where we actually live would be a good location.
| When we moved to our house she worked at a different place, but I
| can see how this would be useful.
|
| The "only show best matches" criterion is a little bit too
| aggressive in this case, though - it basically says "have you
| tried living in the middle of the highway"?
| vindex10 wrote:
| Also matched my place perfectly. With my work, leisure and
| commute requirements! Funny, I feel my requirements overfit on
| my habits - the area where I live was the only highlighted area
| with no alternative sweet spots.
| aantix wrote:
| I genuinely wish there was a map where you could see how many
| kids and their age groups are in a given neighborhood.
|
| Our current house is great, but there aren't many kids in the
| neighborhood.
|
| I understand this is sensitive information, so it probably
| doesn't exist.
|
| But choosing a neighborhood with other families that are in a
| similar life experience is kind of hard..
|
| Especially considering it seems that kids play outside much less,
| so that's less of a signal.
| robhh wrote:
| That's exactly what I'm also looking for. I've been looking for
| a house in both Canada and the U.S. and for Canada there are
| some house search websites that show demographic census data
| for each neighborhood. For the U.S. I haven't seen anything
| comparable. I don't even know if this type of demographic data
| at the necessary granularity would be available publicly?
| silisili wrote:
| In my experience, age of homes in the neighborhood
| approximately equals age of kids in the neighborhood, +- a few
| years. And that makes sense if you think of who is typically
| buying houses en masse as a group - new families. Now, I don't
| live somewhere like SF of NY where people cycle in and out,
| more cities of various sizes in the midwest and south.
|
| My first house was built in the 40's. A few original owners
| existed, along with second owners. I noticed I guess people
| don't tend to move often. There were hardly any kids in the
| neighborhood.
|
| Next house was built in 2009(this would have been 2018ish), and
| the neighborhood was packed full of kids.
|
| Next house was built in the 80s. A lot of original owners,
| again, few kids.
|
| Next house was built in 2012, this would have been 2021 - tons
| of kids
|
| Next house built in mid 90s. This was 2022. Almost everyone in
| the neighborhood was the original owner, very few kids.
|
| So, if my theory holds, if you want to find a neighborhood with
| a lot of kids, buy a midrange house in a ~5 year old
| neighborhood.
|
| (and yes, I realize I've moved a lot).
| timita wrote:
| If you are based in the UK, there is https://xploria.co.uk.
| Click/tap on any location on the map and you get a lot of
| information about the place, inclusive of generations, what
| percentage of families, singles, etc, schools within travel
| timw, and so on. Disclosure: I built this web app.
| aantix wrote:
| Is this based on census data?
| timita wrote:
| Yes, although not yet updated to the one of 2021 (2022 in
| Scotland).
|
| The main page has references to all data sources.
| ultrafez wrote:
| This is very cool - I haven't seen anything like it before.
| I've spent about half an hour noseying at places I've lived
| or considered living, fascinating. The view of changing house
| prices is something that I haven't seen presented in this way
| either.
|
| Thanks for building it and thanks for sharing.
| timita wrote:
| Thanks for the kind words! The prototype was launched in
| 2013, you'd think the world would have caught up since :D.
| The platform underneath allows far more advanced
| functionality, so stick around, there will be many more
| usable (and useful) features in the near term.
| diggan wrote:
| > I genuinely wish there was a map where you could see how many
| kids and their age groups are in a given neighborhood.
|
| Maybe your local city/state/county/country government has a
| "Open Data" portal where they publish stuff like that?
| Barcelona for example has a pretty extensive Open Data
| collection (https://opendata-ajuntament.barcelona.cat/en) where
| you'd be able to find data like that (probably not ready made
| graphs/maps though), and probably also averaged data about how
| many people live in the households of a neighborhood, so you
| could extrapolate for families, etc.
| venusenvy47 wrote:
| For younger age groups, you could search for how many
| elementary schools are in the region. Our town has a lot of
| these schools, because people don't want to be sending their
| young children far away. Generally it's not until high school
| age where the students might have to travel farther from home
| to school.
| robhh wrote:
| There is another website that I've been using that provides
| similar functionality in terms of the heatmap: http://close.city
|
| What I like about this one is that it can show travel times from
| a specific address. What would be even more useful is if it could
| show mixed-mode transportation times.
| rafram wrote:
| Really puts into perspective how wildly varied cities in the US
| are in terms of density and development patterns. Compare New
| York [1] and Seattle [2]. Barely a single patch of gray in New
| York until you get to Long Island, while Seattle has big
| patches with no transit accessibility at all. And many of them
| are extremely wealthy areas. In New York, wealthier areas tend
| to have _better_ transit. Very, very interesting.
|
| [1]:
| https://close.city/?x=-73.92368&y=40.74092&z=11.62779&r=0&l=...
|
| [2]:
| https://close.city/?x=-122.32293&y=47.63375&z=12.62654&r=0&l...
| adamanonymous wrote:
| Goes to show the benefit of a well connected subway network.
| Seattle is mostly just buses except for two independent light
| rail lines
| escapecharacter wrote:
| What if I'm a Kaiju, and I want to disrupt the most electrical
| cables juice up? What path of destruction is best for me?
| uoflcards22 wrote:
| You should see if you could make this an extension to overlay on
| Zillow
| WiggleGuy wrote:
| It can! I can overlay with Zillow, Apartments.com and
| Streeteasy
|
| https://theretowhere.com/we-got-an-extension-babyyyy
| richardw wrote:
| Works for Sydney, well done!
|
| I previously used Mapnificent to choose a house location, and
| found that many geographically closer properties were often much
| further in terms of time. Very useful. I like that it starts off
| with the map view, maybe do that in terms of "shortest time to
| a-ha" and to get the user into putting in the work to refine the
| output?
|
| https://www.mapnificent.net/sydney/
|
| I also used this to look at property/area info. Maybe lift some
| ideas off that. It used to have school ratings, crime etc.
|
| https://heatmaps.com.au/
|
| Something that's a combo of both would be amazing. Good luck!
| drooby wrote:
| This is cool but I don't think it fits my use case..
|
| Seems like I have to pick criteria that have exact venues.. I
| want to pick abstract things like "walking distance from
| grocery", "biking distance from climbing gym" "1 hour drive to
| national park"
| ghostpepper wrote:
| You might prefer a more general walkability map, eg.
| https://www.walkscore.com
| loxias wrote:
| I found it was surprisingly easy to "populate with every
| instance of a given type". I've made a few maps based on
| grocery and transit where I did it by adding all >100 stores &
| stops.
| wilted-iris wrote:
| Same, and I add one even more amorphous criteria, 'not directly
| next to noise pollution like an airport or highways.'
| WiggleGuy wrote:
| Hello!
|
| To echo what loxias said, it is possible to make queries like
| this on the heatmap. You can use the "Search Nearby places"
| button - this takes in more general queries (like cafe, gym,
| walmart, etc) and gives you back a bunch of venues that fit
| that search.
| duskwuff wrote:
| This doesn't seem to work very well. Searching for "grocery
| store" netted me a set of 22 locations spread across the
| entire country.
| ajross wrote:
| "Total count of non-national-chain restaurants within a 1km
| walk" pretty much determines my criterion. Everything else is a
| once a week thing or less. The homes themselves are just a
| bunch of rooms, and I'm flexible. Quality of life is defined by
| my stomach.
| michaelmior wrote:
| Very cool! This is nice when considering moving to a new area to
| narrow down neighborhoods that could work. One thing that I think
| could be useful is to also add criteria for things I want to be
| far from. Some people don't like living near airports for
| example.
| reducesuffering wrote:
| I've built a similar app, but for the whole US, where you can
| input your personal preferences and find the areas in the US that
| best match based on the data:
|
| https://exoroad.com
| asdf6969 wrote:
| This would be great if I had enough money for my preferences to
| matter
| shric wrote:
| Everyone's preferences matter.
|
| I know a homeless guy in Texas whom I talk to on IRC daily.
| Even he has preferences. He lives under a bridge near a library
| that gives him Internet access.
| appreciatorBus wrote:
| You could take the aggregate of "where people want to live" and
| then compare that with an estimate of how much floor space the
| city allows to actually exist. I suspect the ratio would
| correlate extremely well with prices & rents per sqft of
| floorspace. In a perfect world this would inform urban planning,
| though in this world I am less confident.
| faebi wrote:
| I tried something similar myself but failed on wanting to load
| the whole world of openstreetmap onto my server and into
| postgres. It worked but I never managed to get sub second
| postgres query times on a billion rows. Hence, making it unsuable
| for any user.
|
| So my question to you. What's your server and data setup? Do you
| even have your own data? I'm very curious on what is actually
| needed to make it work anywhere.
| loxias wrote:
| This is really, really cool and thanks for making it!!
|
| We must think at least somewhat similarly, last few times I was
| apartment hunting I did the same, though I never polished it up
| like this (more plugging numbers into a spreadsheet).
|
| Honestly the biggest thing this does for me is validate that the
| data APIs must exist for what I'd _really_ want, which is write
| something to make much larger and more complex "programmatic"
| maps -- the list of places being generated by a more complex
| sequence of steps for instance, and the combining function for
| different criteria including nonlinearities.
|
| Curious how you're computing the walking distances, I'm guessing
| this is combining some off the shelf API for it with another for
| the points of interest? Though it would be badass if you did it
| from scratch starting from just OSM. ;)
| royal_frog wrote:
| I believe these are called contour maps not heatmaps (I might be
| wrong)
| anigbrowl wrote:
| I wanted to do this with a city I don't currently live in, but
| every time I did searches on specific locations it went for the
| nearest (bad) match to my current geographic location. It'd be
| nice to generalize it.
|
| I do like that you used OSM rather than Google maps.
| WiggleGuy wrote:
| This is possible!
|
| I should probably make the UX better. When you're on the
| heatmap page (or the distance matrix page), look at the top
| right of the screen. It shows you where it's basing its
| searches on, and you can override that bias with any location
| you like.
|
| You only need to update it once per session - all pages and
| components will be updated
| jkalsdjf209 wrote:
| This is so useful! I have wanted a tool like this for years.
| Thank you for putting in the work and sharing.
| kanaan wrote:
| I've been looking for a tool like this forever. Trying it for my
| city (Milan, Italy), and it's pretty accurate. Would it ever be
| possible to specify which type of public transportation to
| consider (ie: only metro, only bus, ...)?
| svilen_dobrev wrote:
| there was this last year, about isochrone maps:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39808215
|
| not sure how these apply to variants like 10mins by feet vs by
| 10mins bike vs by bus vs by metro vs by car vs by airplane :)
| bagels wrote:
| I want to live where I can walk to a grocery store, there is
| little traffic, crime and detritus, balancing affordability.
|
| This doesn't cover any of that.
| superconduct123 wrote:
| Why even comment then? You think every Show HN should be
| catered to you?
| IncreasePosts wrote:
| I thought about using Google maps street view photos for
| something like that, get all the photos for a city, and then
| classify how much trash is visible, and also calculate how many
| people there are and what they're doing.
|
| My idea, at least from living in New York, is that if there are
| a medium amount of people walking around, and not that many
| people just sitting there or leaning against a building, and
| there isn't a ton of trash visible, then it is probably a
| pretty good neighborhood.
|
| If there is nobody, or a ton of people, or if the people aren't
| mobile, or if there's a lot of trash, then it is probably not a
| neighborhood that I would like.
|
| You could probably also use business types for that. Like, I
| would not want to live in a neighborhood that has a ton of pawn
| shops or churches in it.
| introspecti wrote:
| It only cares about distance by car, walk, etc?
|
| I would like to have more criterias
| bnchrch wrote:
| Great idea, looking forward to someone implementing it!
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