Open Government: Local

This is a temporary repository of scrapers written using Billy to collect legislative information from local governments in the United States.

Getting Started

To get started, you may re-use Open 13's excellent instructions, replacing open13 where appropriate. Briefly, if you already have Git, MongoDB, Python 2.7 and virtualenvwrapper 1.7 or greater, then fork this repository and run:

git clone https://github.com/YOURUSERNAME/opengovernment-local.git
cd opengovernment-local
mkvirtualenv oglocal --system-site-packages

If you are not using the boundary service described below, comment out the following line in requirements.txt:

-e git+http://github.com/rhymeswithcycle/represent-boundaries.git#egg=represent-boundaries

Run pip install -r requirements.txt and you should be ready to go!

Boundary Service

You do not need a boundary service to run the scrapers. GeoDjango is not compatible with PostGIS 2.0, so you must use PostGIS 1.5. PostGIS 1.5 is not compatible with PostgreSQL 9.2, so you must use PostgreSQL 9.0. On OS X, if you already have PostgreSQL 9.2 via Homebrew, run:

brew tap homebrew/versions
brew unlink postgis
brew install postgis15
initdb /usr/local/var/postgres9
cp /usr/local/Cellar/postgresql9/9.0.8/org.postgresql.postgres.plist ~/Library/LaunchAgents/
launchctl load -w ~/Library/LaunchAgents/org.postgresql.postgres.plist

Then you can run:

createdb -h localhost oglocal
psql oglocal -f /path/to/postgis.sql
psql oglocal -f /path/to/spatial_ref_sys.sql
cp local_settings.py.example local_settings.py

Then, edit local_settings.py with your PostgreSQL credentials and run:

python site/manage.py syncdb
python site/manage.py loadshapefiles

The repository for OpenStates' shapefiles is sunlightlabs/pentagon.

Running Scrapers

billy-update pa-philadelphia --fastmode
billy-update ca-san-jose --fastmode

Writing a Scraper

For now, see the OpenStates documentation.

Running the Site

python site/manage.py runserver

Browse the web version at http://127.0.0.1:8000/
Consult the scraper dashboard at http://127.0.0.1:8000/admin/
Use the API according to the OpenStates documentation

Bugs? Questions?

This project's main repository is on GitHub: http://github.com/opengovernment/opengovernment-local, where your contributions, forks, bug reports, feature requests, and feedback are greatly welcomed.

janbenson / opengovernment-local Goto Github PK