Here’s an interesting New York Times article to start your 2018 looking at google street view data.
How Do You Vote? 50 Million Google Images Give a Clue
https://nyti.ms/2EnHECF
...”To Nikhil Naik, a computer scientist and research fellow at Harvard, who has used Street View images in the study of urban environments, the Stanford project points toward the future of image-fueled research.
“For the first time in history, we have the technology to extract insights from very large amounts of visual data,” Mr. Naik said. “But while the technology is exciting, computer scientists need to work closely with social scientists and others to make sure it’s useful.””
And I would add dealing with concerns about privacy.