{"id":3044,"date":"2012-02-09T13:12:21","date_gmt":"2012-02-09T20:12:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mikesenese.com\/DOIT\/?p=3044"},"modified":"2026-03-08T21:04:15","modified_gmt":"2026-03-09T04:04:15","slug":"the-united-states-of-craigslist-map","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mikesenese.com\/DOIT\/2012\/02\/the-united-states-of-craigslist-map\/","title":{"rendered":"The United States of Craigslist Map"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

An active CL community is a requirement for anywhere I live, and this awesome “chalkboard map” by \u00a0John Nelson of IDV Solutions<\/a>\u00a0shows a re-imagining \u00a0of the USA, broken down by the cities with a craigslist community and the zipcode area that is serviced by those.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The USA of CL IDV page<\/a>\u00a0has notes about using this data as an overlay for online mapping services. It also gives a fascinating breakdown of the process involved in compiling the data and creating the map information:<\/p>\n

Nerdy Bits<\/strong>
\n\u2022\u00a0Scrape the list of Craig\u2019s cities at\u00a0http:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20260308001547\/https:\/\/www.craigslist.org\/about\/sites<\/a>.
\n\u2022\u00a0Split joint-locations into individual locations (like “Odessa \/ Midland”)
\n\u2022\u00a0Geocode place-specific locations.
\n\u2022\u00a0Manually position the more regional locations (like “Southeast Iowa”).
\n\u2022\u00a0Divide locations into three geographically distinct regions (split by the Continental Divide along the spine of the Rockies\u00a0and the Mississippi); duplicate any locations that meaningfully straddle a border, like St. Louis. I do this to introduce some true-cost of crossing either of those features, in the face of an algorithm that would otherwise treat the whole country as a smooth unfettered\u00a0plain<\/a>.
\n\u2022\u00a0Run Voronoi (Thiessen) algorithm to generate best-fit zones for the points, for all three regions.
\n\u2022\u00a0Clip Voronoi zones by a\u00a0\u201cland\u201d shape to cut out the oceans\u00a0and provide a common border between the three regions (my “land” was constructed from the Census Bureau’s tracts file).
\n\u2022\u00a0Merge the 3 regional Voronoi sets into a unified nation-wide set.
\n\u2022\u00a0Dissolve boundaries between same-website Voronoi zones (to re-combine the joint-locations up there in step 2) into merged chunky polygons.
\n\u2022\u00a0Manually re-assign oddly-orphaned or split areas (common along complicated shorelines).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

For any of you data-hounds, or those who just like infographics, check out<\/a> all the cool maps and visualizations these guys are creating.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Update: Mr. Nelson left a nice comment with some details about an additional Craigslist map he created a few months after this one, that plots the actual zip code details instead of polygon shapes based on the general areas they represent. Check it out below, and if you want the actual zip code data table (like one Linkedin user did), navigate to the page<\/a> for the dropbox link and notes.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An active CL community is a requirement for anywhere I live, and this awesome “chalkboard map” by \u00a0John Nelson of IDV Solutions\u00a0shows a re-imagining \u00a0of the USA, broken down by the cities with a craigslist community and the zipcode area that is serviced by…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3044","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gadget","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nThe United States of Craigslist Map — DO IT: Projects, Plans, and How-tos<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Explore how Craigslist communities reshape the US map by zipcode. 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