Now I know Google are starting to roll out their new Maps interface but one thing they should really get sorted is their low-level city detail. Clancy Wilmott is in the final stages of organizing the Thinking and Doing Digital Mapping workshop at Warwick (17-18th June) and asked about transport plans in the Coventry area. Predictably my first thoughts were “let’s check Google Maps!” but unfortunately the results were less than satisfactory. Check below:

So I went onto OSM thinking I might find a more detailed picture of Coventry and this is what I got:

And wow, what a difference. If Google really want to be known as Cartographic Kings of the World then they need to sort out this kind of quality issue. Yes, okay the satellite layer sort of makes up for this loss of information, but when large swathes of city centres are completely greyed out then you can’t really claim any victories on quality. OSM beats Google hands down on the urban intricacies.