Since this "Quiet Revolution" (whatever it is) claims to oppose "corporate titans" (their words), and wants to talk about an economy more "in line with (their) values", I found their choice of tools interesting. That's all.
Made an account for this purpose, pay it no mind: https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=pepperax
Especially in New York, and with standard Google Maps service, it's not hard to find where things are. It's hard to find that they exist -- and, if they do, whether they fit your need...and clicking around on a map is not the efficient way to do it. Nor to enumerate it.
Even the most famous map -- John Snow's cholera map -- was not revolutionary in itself. Snow didn't find out anything from mapping, it was just part of the documentary process and the one made famous by Tufte. But Snow himself would've concluded that the map was of little evidence, because such maps were used to prove the miasma theory that he was trying to disprove. And his map, without the data that he collected, fell into this visual trap.
So what is the way to do things? Use a spreadsheet. Think about the important facets about each entry. And hell, one of those could be "address", and in literally one step, you can also make a map out of it if you want.
And when I mean "especially in New York", I mean that geographical distance is not the most useful metric. Even when it comes to geography. I prefer proximity to what subway station, and that is a kind of metric that is obscured/obfuscated by a map
The map itself may not be a way to solve anything, but the data it's collecting could be. Like you say, you prefer knowing proximity to subway stations - not just seeing a map. But the need to figure out that proximity is what makes collecting locational data (in a fun and user-friendly way, like OP's map) so important.
Regarding my apparent trolling, I think HN may have missed my point. Using the Google Maps API implies agreement to their ToS, which restricts one from using non-Google basemaps, and limits usage of the map in certain ways. While many people ignore, or are never affected, by usage limits, this still obligates developers to Google's quotas and pricing tiers (updated significantly in late 2013). There are other, similarly-implemented mapping APIs with more options, where you aren't locked-in to a particular vendor's load quotas. Tying OP's project to this particular API is a bit like saying "Support Local Businesses! ...click here for our Cafe Press site."
I don't like to hate on creativity , but faux-revolutionaries that don't address complexity really annoy me.
I've had some thoughts rattling in my head for a couple years now on building networks/tools to unify/empower small organizations, and to reduce hierarchical structures. There are multiple ways I hope to go about this, and would love to discuss it with anybody who wants to email me.
More or less, though, this is a very basic form of one of my ideas - or a decent starting point. I definitely agree with some of the criticism of a map-only set-up as danso mentioned, etc... I prefer the way Yelp is set up, for instance.
Also, I don't believe Freelancer's Union has been covered here much (if at all), and I believe that they could be a great resource to many of the people here.
PS: not all of it was bad.
