exploration

SmugMaps vs. Geoblogger

See users duke it out on Metafilter.

While I still haven't decided upon which application to use (SmugMaps or Geoblogger), I can't help being awestruck at how others use these applications. It is amazing to be able to virtually follow along on another's journey through their photos and georeferences. I wish I had been able to use this as an archiving tool on my last roadtrip a few years back. Maybe my mum would have slept better at night (on second thought, maybe not).

Hitching Stealth with Trevor Paglen

This is a shameless plug, but I have a feeling many of Urban Cartography's readers will enjoy it. 080105_1 The article I am about to present expands upon the work of an artist/geographer at Berkeley who, broadly speaking, looks for connections between urban power headquarters and exurban patches of land. His work mainly deals with the production of military and prison landscapes, without overlooking the urban spaces where negotiations to produce these landscapes are held. This is our latest feature at Archinect and Bryan Finoki takes us for a ride with the outlaw geographer to the wild stealth frontier.

A Look at the Other Side

Viewing_platformEver wondered what's behind those private community gates? Take a stroll down to Los Angeles and look for yourself using the viewing platforms installed at various housing developments by Heavy Trash:

What is Heavy Trash? An anonymous arts organization of architects, designers and urban planners, Heavy Trash creates large, disposable art objects that draw community and media attention to urban issues. By explaining a particular urban problem and suggesting a solution, Heavy Trash seeks to provoke dialogue among the residents of Los Angeles.

[via Beyond Brilliance, Beyond Stupidity]

loopcity

Anne deliciouses this site: loopcity, a project about repeated crossing loops that people make in the going about of everyday lives.

FoundCity in Super Beta

Terrible_street_karaokeShould you find a point of interest in Manhattan that you would like to share with others, simply folkmap it via cellphone on FoundCity.net:

Using folksonomy tags, people in the city can index what they find interesting about the city, in order to bookmark it for themselves as well as to reveal it to other people. Folkmapping allows you to both keep track of the things you stumble across in your daily adventures, as well as compare notes with other people in your city, to learn more about your surroundings and discover interesting things you may have been missing out on. And as you do it, you contribute to a growing index of space that becomes more interesting with each new entry.

fugitive images

Achtung_babythis site, my friends, is quite simply way past cool: underground wheat paste flyer and graffiti art from new york. catch these fugitive images now.

radical tours

the next time you're headed to new york, check out bruce kayton's radical walking tours. go visit historic sites that don't usually get mentioned in the various tour guides: emma goldman's house, julius and ethel rosenberg's hangouts, leon trotsky's place in the bronx (where he lived before heading back to help out in a certain 1917 revolution). you can get ideas from the site and cruise around yourself with the book, or you pay him to show you around on one of his guided tours.

cultural landscapes

culture can be expressed in many ways, but perhaps the most concrete of ways is how humans build on the landscape...or reshape the landscape entirely. transformations of nature offer a fascinating window into how we view and value our surroundings, each other, and history.  cultural landscapes is a collection of many such transformations, including a visual tour of jens jenson's landscaping of chicago parks (jenson is the lesser known contemporary of frederick law olmstead, designer of central park in NYC, the US capitol grounds, the fens in boston, as well as having a hand in yosemite and other major attractions).

Driving through the City

In our new "ownership society" we are becoming increasingly attached to the idea of belonging to our possessions. The ZipCar flies in the face of this oppressive-consumerist ideal. The ZipCar could be enormously relevant to the way detached homes, apartments, and condos will be built in the future. Currently, it has about 3,500 users in Cambridge, Massachusetts. [via planetizen]

"Myth 1: Successful cities have abundant parking." Line mag does a series of articles about parking and mobility in cities. I haven't checked all the articles but it looks very interesting and comprehensive.

"The approach is radically counterintuitive: Build roads that seem dangerous, and they'll be safer." An article in Wired about the new generation of traffic engineers. I toured a new urbanist development in Southeastern Michigan once and our guide asked "why do we build our roads, our neighborhood roads, like airport runways." She was referring to the practices of building wide banking turns, giant cul-de-sacs and roads broad enough for two firetrucks and and ambulances side-by-side.

Dialect map. [via J-Walk]

Eagle Flies at Midnight

Urban cartography begins with dressing up in black suits, donning ski masks and sneaking around at midnight into old buildings and underground tunnels.

If you happen to be one of the bold and the curious, the Urban Exploration Resource provides maps and details for secret places in your city.

Local Sacramentans might have seen this Sacramento Bee article describing the demise of our local tunnel system.  However, since this article was written, a main access point has been cemented-in by evil city engineers.

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