CASE FILE: map-it

role: Contractor
period: 2025–ongoing
stack: Ruby on Rails, Inertia & Svelte 5, Hotwire, SQLite
about: participatory mapping platform for neighbourhood planning
url: map-it.at

Summary

map-it is a civic-tech platform for participatory neighbourhood mapping. Initiatives, associations, and city administrations use it to run “mapping calls” — structured campaigns where residents place geo-located ideas, complaints, and proposals directly on a map of their neighbourhood.

I joined as a contractor in 2025 to build out the core product. The platform runs on Rails with SQLite and SpatiaLite for spatial data, Inertia and Svelte 5 for interactive UI, using MapLibre for map rendering. Back-office pages use the default Rails stack - Hotwire and server-rendered views.

The central problem map-it solves is a familiar one in urban planning: the people who live in a place know it best, but their knowledge is hard to capture in a form that planners can actually use. Feedback gets lost in public meetings, buried in PDFs, or reduced to a few loud voices. map-it makes that feedback structured, spatial, and visible.

map-it mapping call on mobile showing idea pins across Vienna and the project hero image — Mobile views — a mapping call overview (left) and an individual resident entry with map pin and agree votes (right).

map-it individual entry detail view on mobile with map pin, photo, and agree votes — Mobile views — a mapping call overview (left) and an individual resident entry with map pin and agree votes (right).

On the engineering side, the work touches the full stack. Spatial queries with Spatialite, highly-interactive bottom-sheet UI for mobile, image uploads and processing, multi-step mapping call workflows, and an admin interface for organisations to manage their campaigns. The app needs to feel native on mobile — most residents arrive via a shared link on their phone — while also working as a proper desktop tool for planners and organisations browsing the feed.

map-it feed page at desktop resolution showing a sidebar with mapping calls and a map of Vienna with hundreds of idea pins — The feed at desktop resolution — a sidebar lists active mapping calls and recent ideas while the map shows all contributions across the city.

The platform is in active pilot with real organisations and real residents. The mapping calls are public, the data is real, and the feedback is already being used in planning conversations. It is early-stage civic tech that works.