Back in November of 2021 I got this idea in my head: that the number of places that would end up sacrificed to Managed Retreat in the future would grow. That only the cities and towns with wealthy patrons would be in any position to preserve the local history and representations of the places being lost as I’m trying to do . . . unless they have someone like me. Someone with the technological capabilities, skill sets, drive, desire and opportunity to take on a project of this nature.
I suspect most places don’t have either – what will happen to them? To the history and record of those places being lost?
Is there any record?
I had a 360 degree camera to use to take my own pictures. Granted it was a consumer version and when I compared it to the pictures in Google’s Street View I found myself a bit envious. But Google is far richer and capable than I . . . than almost everyone in this space.
Who has more pictures of neighborhoods all over the world? Both from the air and down at ground level organized by location?
Why that’s Google of course!
Google’s imagery is available for free and that’s great. But Google is also a business and things that don’t attract the interest of visitors to Googles web offerings will eventually go away. And no longer be viewable or usable. I’ve seen that happen more than once with Google’s product offerings.
Community spaces that no longer exist eventually will no longer be viewable in Google Maps because Google Maps isn’t Google History. It’s there to show you what is there now – not a while ago.
So I got to wondering if Google had thought about this. Preserving that information for future use. Making it available to local history organizations and historians and the public. Or had anyone approached them about doing just that?
So I crafted the plea below. And I’ve posted in the support forums of both Google Maps and Google Earth. But I guess that’s just not enough to get anyone’s attention at Google or Alphabet.
A plea for help from Google / Alphabet, November 2021
I’m writing to ask if it would be possible for data from your mapping services for a small local area to be preserved and made accessible for future historical purposes.
These days climate change is bringing hard decisions to humanity – Managed Retreat is becoming an option that many places are being forced to consider. Sometimes it may better to leave then preserve – it might be the only option in some cases. For those places which will eventually become mere memories we ask that you consider this request. Consider what your company can do as a service to history. So those places where many lived, loved and eventually lost can be preserved for future generations to learn from.
Background:
Our small city is Grand Forks located in southern British Columbia, Canada.
In 2018 we had historic flooding. One result of the decisions local government has made is to turn a small residential neighbourhood into a floodable plain to help take some of the load off the downtown area. To retreat from that space called North Ruckle. To remove all the housing and infrastructure returning it to green space.
This is a small residential neighborhood directly across the river from downtown. It lies between the river and a couple of industrial operations. It has been part of the history of Grand Forks since the beginning. By this time next year ALL the houses and other buildings will be gone – either demolished or moved away. Eventually all the services and most of the streets will be removed as well.
Your mapping cars have driven through this space. As the picture shows about 7 strips of travel were captured across this 2 by 4 block space.
We would like to preserve as much of the history of this place as possible for future generations to see, listen to and learn from. We will be collecting stories and history but you have a unique set of imagery collected and compiled through your mapping services and we would love to see that saved in some way. So that visitors could roam a long-gone neighbourhood and have an experience akin to visiting and having a look around.
Can this be done? Can the data be shared? Or released?
While we ask this for ourselves, and our town, we suspect we won’t be the only community asking for this kind of help from your company.
Please consider our request in that light – a service to the larger community that you already serve in so many ways and in so many places.
If you already have a program to deal with requests such as these, we’d appreciate being apprised of that.
Thanks for your consideration.
- Les Johnson
Past President / Lifetime Member of the Boundary Historical Society
As I mentioned earlier nothing has come of my posting. Someone suggested I look up whatever page they have for submitting new project ideas and I may eventually do that. Hopefully before too long . . . but if you’ve read this far and know someone at Google then please push this idea their way. Because Climate Change is real and is happening whether we believe in it or not. And Managed Retreat appears to be our plan and that can lead to lost history.