Culture : Space

Navigation Technology

 

Henry Grabar's article "Smartphones and the Uncertain Future of 'Spatial Thinking'" hit home!  A recent experience navigating DC left me with a sense of unease as I was unable to recall any of the street names near a place that I visit often. I relate to the following: 

"But I've lately undergone a crisis of confidence: I find it hard to hit the road without consulting my phone. And while I'd like to think the recommended route (from Google, Waze, Hopstop, etc.) is just one influence among many—that I have other preferences their algorithms can't perceive—I'm not too proud to confess that I trust the computer more than I trust myself. The habits, hubris, and quirky predilections that once manipulated my movements are being replaced by the judgments of artificial intelligence."

Sitting in my car, I realized that not only do I not know the surrounding streets, but I also didn't have a sense of how to get home by car or foot.  I have become so dependent on the phone that I often use Google maps to orient myself while on foot!  

 

 

Iconic TV Homes

Photo: "Brady Bunch" Interior

Photo:  "Full House" Exterior

Photo: "Cosby Show" Exterior

Marketplace.org published an online quiz to test your knowledge of houses in pop culture.  The quiz features memorable homes from TV shows such as the "Brady Bunch" and "Full House."  I scored 9 out of 9 (although I guessed for the last two!). 

Zillow also published a bird's eye view of famous TV homes. 

What does it mean that I can easily recognize these homes? Does it matter?  How have these images shaped my beliefs about what is means to own a home?

I am thinking about the housing crisis and homeownership as one of the central features of the American Dream. One promising research direction is the construction of the American Dream through representations of the domestic sphere and the “good life” on TV. I want to explore the ways cultural and social differences (e.g., class, race and ethnicity, sexualty, gender) are communicated and negotiated in TV representations of spatial domesticity. 

 

Interesting reads

Sheldon and Leonard's apartment from the Big Bang Theory

Credit: www.cbs.com

 

Bankrate.com:  What 6 TV homes would cost in real life. By Dana Dratch

Slate:  Are Artists to Blame for Gentrification? By Ben Davis

Crime Apps

Thank you Emily Badger (Atlantic Cities) for posting "Enough Already With the Avoid-The-Ghetto Apps." I shouldn't be astonished by an app named "GhettoTracker" (renamed "Good Part of Town") -- but with gentrification and growing interest in urban spaces by the middle class, these type of apps/websites shouldn't be surprising.

Related articles

'Ghetto Tracker,' App That Helps Rich Avoid Poor, Is As Bad As It Sounds

The Racial Dot Map

Source: Dustin Cable/Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service at the University of Virginia

 

Dustin Cable, a demographic researcher at the University of Virginia, created another interesting mapping project based on the 2010 Census data.  The blog and interactive map can be found here.

 

Maps: Poverty and Race in the US

 

 

 

The Urban Institute created a mapping tool that tracks poverty and racial segregation using detailed Census data for every metro area in the US from 1980-2010.  The above maps represent Washington, DC in 1980 and 2010.  The maps provide visual evidence of the effects of gentrification in the metro area, especially comparing the urban center versus the suburbs.

Google's Personal Maps

Evgeny Morozov wrote an interesting article, "My Map or Yours?," for Slate critiquing Google’s plan to personalize maps.  I agree with Morozo that there are social implications that need to be considered.

From the article:

 “Google's urbanism, on the other hand, is that of someone who is trying to get to a shopping mall in their self-driving car. It's profoundly utilitarian, even selfish in character, with little to no concern for how public space is experienced. In Google's world, public space is just something that stands between your house and the well-reviewed restaurant that you are dying to get to. Since no one formally reviews public space or mentions it in their emails, it might as well disappear from Google's highly personalized maps.”

Geography, Hate and Technology

Image from Atlantic Cities: "Where Americans Tweet Messages of Hate"

 

Atlantic Cities posted an interesting article on a research project from Humboldt State mapping hateful tweets.  The interactive map can be found here. The maps illustrate the persistance of prejudice and hate in the US.

Post-Industrial Metro Areas

The Atlantic Cities posted "America's Most Post-Industrial Metros" listing the top 20 metro areas with populations over 1 million that score highest on the ratio of services to goods in America's continuing transition to a post-industrial economy. 

The overall ratio of services to goods for the U.S. economy is approximately 3 to 1. The post-industrial economy is most prevalent in the Northeast corridor (Boston to Washington, DC).  The Washington metro area is the highest with a ratio of 11.17. The New York metro follows with a ratio of 9.86.  Interestingly, the Miami metro area follows with a ratio of 7.75. 

The DC and NYC metro areas have a higher concentration of professionals, but I would guess that Miami has a higher ratio of service jobs in comparison to professional jobs.  It would be interesting to compare income levels with the services to goods ratio to also consider rising inequality in post-industrial metro areas.

Suburban Poverty

Sprawling and struggling: Poverty hits America's suburbs by Allison Linn

From NBC News -- "Poverty in Plain Sight" series:

"The number of suburban residents living in poverty rose by nearly 64 percent between 2000 and 2011, to about 16.4 million people, according to a Brookings Institution analysis of 95 of the nation’s largest metropolitan areas. That’s more than double the rate of growth for urban poverty in those areas.

'I think we have an outdated perception of where poverty is and who it is affecting,' said Elizabeth Kneebone, a fellow at the Brookings Institution and co-author of the research. 'We tend to think of it as a very urban and a very rural phenomenon, but it is increasingly suburban.'"

The post features a mother and daughter in Connecticut--however, I am interested in the statistics for the Washington, D.C. area.  I suspect that this is happening in the suburbs of the DC Metro area despite local news stories commending the area economy and low unemployment rate.