Carto City

March 15, 2008

Dennis Cosgrove’s essay on the cartography of cities explains the ways in which mapping has changed throughout history. Mapping itself is an often overlooked area of interactivity. Anyone who has had to go somewhere in the past several hundred years has more than likely consulted a map. The ways in which the spaces are constructed and the ways in which they are represented affect the way we interact with them. Cosgrove writes about the ways cities are laid out, either from a central axis or on a grid. Each method of planning creates different social outcomes and has different inherent meaning.
This article bears significance to me because I think in our day we tend to ignore traditional modes of interaction. We all want talk about how we can interact with others via some wild new device. Maps are a great way to talk about interactivity because they have been around for centuries, and have developed sophisticated methods of communicating information. Many of these methods have been adopted in other disciplines. Besides, maps are also a part of the digital age; the language and implementation of cartography has continued to grow with the proliferation of GPS and online mapping services. With the introduction of the iPhone and with Android to come out later this year maps will become an even more integrated form of interaction for many people in first world countries.