The Flatland Perspective

What is my favorite city map? Well, out of all the ones we have looked at in class, I would have to say the City of Edmonton crime map is my favorite. I enjoy this map for a number of reasons, namely those being, I can look up my neighborhood and compare it to other neighborhoods. Now, to be perfectly honest, one of the things I enjoy about this map is that, by comparing my neighborhood to others, I can talk candidly about my place in either a positive or negative light. Or rather, I can talk to others about what I found about their neighborhood. So in a way this first reason is sort of a desire to be self-centered that this map fulfills, only in the sense that I, because of this map, will compare others to myself until I am satisfied with my knowledge of my location to in relation to other locations. And, realistically, who doesn't love to draw comparison between places and the relation of places to their own place? (As confusing as that question sounded) But don't all statistically based maps in a sense do this? That is, don't they incline one towards comparison? Then what makes the crime map different? Well, personally, as shelter is intricately tied to security, crime can, in a way, be a determinant in the overall "quality" of ones community. And is that not what we all want--or at least what all communities want? To know whether or not we have something special to offer beyond the basic need of shelter? Maps are one of the modes we use to determine whether or not the latter is true. Therefore, in regards to what maps we wish we had, I might pose this question: if only we had a map that was a sum of all maps, imagine how much time might we save obsessing over trivial differences?

"My Edmonton"

My Edmonton is one that has remained relatively confined to the southern districts, so for the majority of my life I have been prone to pessimistic assumptions regarding its potential to provide me with new opportunities. The city itself is much larger than I had previously imagined--where beyond downtown there existed neighbourhoods that ended just short of 118^th avenue and beyond South Edmonton Common, farmer’s fields and an airport. Edmonton is a city with one of the largest space to inhabitant ratios in the country, and although I would like to attribute this condition to the unfortunate generalization that I mentioned in the former sentence, it would not be true. I have instead been living in a sort of ‘bubble’ (to quote those in the class from ‘the Park’), confined to the south in such a way as to lack consideration of the other half of this city. So by considering the prompt questions for this entry at this point in my life—I have just recently been attempting to expand my horizons so to speak, I might argue that it is a city of unrealized potential, as there are some areas with which I am unfamiliar and whose unfamiliarity will most likely take a long time for me to overcome. This is how I try to feel about Edmonton now, as it would be hard for me to fall in love with a city if hadn’t the inclination that there might be something out there to love.