How much geography can we do without?
by @Fathom
Just how important is it that metro maps represent geography? This piece came from an interest in how metro maps over the past century have tiptoed between geographic and topological representations—topological meaning to forgo all spatial integrity and instead represent the connectivity of a specific environment. Read more.
Intellectually provocative post that explores the extent to which representing geography adds value to a transit map. How helpful is it to represent the transit lines as an abstraction versus relating them to geographic and topographic constraints? For me this discussion spurs thoughts on bike lane mapping. When you’re powering a bike uphill, topography is suddenly much more valuable, especially as a tourist or new comer to a place that might have picked a different route had my bike lane map indicated topography ahead of time. Since we’re living in the Year of Bikeshare, this seems like an especially poignant question.
If you haven’t played around with Streetmix then you’re not doing it right. Code for America delivers (yet again!) a nifty little web app that allows you to mix and match a street cross section in real time. Anybody active in urban planning should find this super useful for visualization and alternatives analysis.
fuckyeahhotactress:/Vanessa Hudgens in a Photoshoot by Jenny Gage and Tom Betterton
