Hello everybody! My name is Marco and I’m a local guide in Rome (Italy). At the same time, I’m an architect and a volunteer for many free events related to architecture, city planning, and local history: the aim is to reveal and to spread the knowledge of the surroundings for better use of the city.
Currently, I am living in a popular district of Rome named Montagnola San Paolo. Now it’s a high-density neighborhood but, not so far in the past, it was a part of the Roman countryside. On September 1943, in the middle of the Second World War, it was also the place for the battle between the Italian Army and the German troops attacking the city of Rome after the Italian Armistice with the Allies. (for further info, please read this Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armistice_of_Cassibile). Many civilians that were living in the surroundings have found the death: someone while helping wounded soldiers, someone while escaping or even while working in the fields.
How Google Maps can help to keep the memory alive? After standard research on books, files, and memories, the useful data is registered by me on Google Maps, creating special thematic maps. One of these is, for example, a map showing the place and telling the story of every civilian wounded or dead in those days. Another one shows the evolution of the fightings during that period, linking historical pictures with places. All those maps will be shared with local schools and associations and will be part of the teaching material for cultural events.
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1bYnMaptcCW7snUoxcS13MXGES39J0Zio&usp=sharing
History is not the only topic treated with Google Maps. It is also possible to create maps about the urbanistic evolution of the district (using level and line tools) and maps about the local issues like accessibility problems, work in progress sites, illegal garbage dumps and so on. Sharing and interoperability is the key to the process.