Maps that reveal
Eric Fischer has created some fascinating maps that expose aspects of San Francisco (and many other cities) that are otherwise latent or ignored.
The first map (click for link to full version) shows the geographic concentration of flickr photos taken by tourists (red), locals (blue) and uncertain (yellow). The actual map data comes from openstreemap.
Perhaps even more striking is this map below showing racial and ethic distribution using data from the 2000 census. Here Red is White, Blue is Black, Green is Asian, Orange is Hispanic, Gray is Other, and each dot is 25 people. Well known ethnic enclaves like China Town and the Mission are clearly discernable, as well as other areas with strong ethnic and racial concentrations like Bayview, Hunter’s Point, and Oakland.
Eric’s maps are actually quite beautiful, but they’re also challenging (in a good way). A map, it turns out, is an incredibly blunt instrument for representing reality. Perhaps that’s part of what makes them so effective in yanking us out of our everyday human experience to see a bigger picture. That’s not to say that we don’t already experience San Francisco in terms of “touristy or not,” or “asian,” or “black,” or “white.” We do. The point is that because they’re basic categories of how we divide and and delineate places, we often forget that we’re doing it at all. Maps like these help remind us of that, and also help to expose the underlying realities that lead to our experience in the first place.
