Follow-Up on the United States of Craigslist

Regarding This...

Here's what a commenter named "K" or "twodogkd" wrote (who I infer to possibly be the dude who...drumroll...was a keymaster of Craigslist sites).  If so, looks like the method was, appropriately, a thoughtful manual research process honoring the variable scale and habits of communities.  Especially interesting was the (initial) CL site criteria:

• international destination
• has international airport
• a computer connected population

Humm,

As I worked for a few years early on responding to those requesting CL cities sites, I find this map interesting. I would tell some folks they could not or should not have their own CL site as they were too close to existing CL sites.

I tried clicking on an individual area like the Inland Empire which is Riverside and San Bernardino Counties in CA (except for areas near Palm Springs that has its own CL site as they met the criteria (international destination, has international airport, a computer connected population)

twodogkd
Riverside CA

Fast-following second comment...

I can comment more about some regions when I CAN SEE THE DETAILS of the map produced to better see what areas ended up within the same sections.


It may be that some things do not make sense such as for people who live on the Nevada side of the Sierra Nevada where they live on a geographic north south corridor along US HIGHWAY 395, so chopping that up into sections going into Nevada may not make sense since folks along that road either drive up towards tahoe/reno to shop or drive down to shop.


When I considered geographic areas that should be included in a Craiglist site, I did quite a bit of research using the wikipedia for the City, County, State, etc as needed to learn about the city/site and surrounding areas AND ALSO looked at the nearest Craigslist cities/sites.


One issue with Craigslist is ONCE they GO SMALL it is hard to broaden out.


I believe some Craigslist sites get TOO SMALL such that what would be ones "COMMUNITY AREA" or the area folks are normally drive and travel in the normal course of their lives may vary from area to area. In the Inland Empire (Riverside and San Bernardino Counties) many of us tend not to think much of traveling 60 to 80 miles and do so much more frequently and for some daily. Also there is much crossover between Riverside and San Bernardino with many Riverside citizens attending college in San Bernardino for example.


Craiglist is about COMMUNITY so the geographic areas selected should reflect that to the extent it makes sense to do so.


Regarding This...

In other news, Steven Brown wrote me with a revised set of zip-codes to Craigslist sites, which I am making available to you here.  I can't vouch for it's awesomeness, but you can have at it yourself if you like...

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/17180596/StevesUpdatedCraigsZipsLookup.zip


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