Mapping the Age of Every Building in Los Angeles

Developed using open data from local government sources, built: LA is a mapping tool that displays the age of every building in the county. Much of the area's built environment is surprisingly old.

1 minute read

June 19, 2015, 12:00 PM PDT

By Philip Rojc @PhilipRojc


Angelino Heights

Konrad Summers / Flickr

CityLab's Laura Bliss reports on an interesting new data visualization tool. "Construction in Los Angeles may have exploded during the postwar era, but as a new interactive map shows, the wide age range of its buildings might surprise you."

"Using open data from local governments, built: LA visualizes the age of roughly 3 million buildings across L.A. County constructed between 1890 and 2008. Drag your mouse to explore the vast web of communities and neighborhoods, hover over individual properties to discover birth years, and double click to zoom in further."

"Perhaps best of all, hit the rainbow stopwatch to view a decade-by-decade timelapse of development across the county. The city's core, in particular, clusters together buildings of century-spanning generations, while suburbs and communities to the east and west tend to represent just one or two decades of development."

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