Lab 3: Neogeography

Walking Tour of San Francisco

View San Francisco Walking/Public Transportation Tour in a larger map

As I am from northern California and have spent thousands of hours touring the streets of San Francisco, I decided to create a walking tour of the city. This map highlights landmarks, restaurants, transportation, and activites that can all be accomplished in one day. I have incoporated media into my mash-up by adding pitcures and videos to the different landmark locations.

Commentary on Neogeography:

By definition, neogeography encompasses different geographical techniques and tools used for personal activities or for utilization by a non-expert group of users. Neogeography is neither formal nor analytical. Over the past decade, online tools such as Google Maps and Google Earth have popularized neogeographical techniques. These tools have made it possible for any common individual to create his/her own map, without requiring any special education, short of a 1 minute tutorial.

However, as great as neogeography may sound, several pitfalls lie in its wake. For instance, any human or machine can freely create a public map. When viewing these maps, there is absolutely no way of knowing whether the information presented is at all factual. Many of the same concerns that engulf Wikipedia also ascertain to neogeography. The primary concern revolves around a world filled with "amateur" maps, as opposed to professional cartography and GIS. Ultimately, this phenomenon could reduce the number of professional jobs available in the fields of geography and GIS.

Also, several privacy issues emerge with neogeography. For instance, satellite views allow some of the most minute details of people's lives to be observed by anyone with an internet connection. Through these maps, mapmakers can easily mass advertise people's home addresses, phone numbers, schedules, and even voting information.

However, despite these major pitfalls, neogeography possesses ample potential. These open source maps allow for a surge of new, different, exciting, and creative maps to flow across the internet. Neogeography allows amateurs to condense anything from baseball statistics, census data, and political outcomes into a map, presenting data visually. This greatly reduces pressure on the government to create such maps, allowing professionals to focus their energy on greater problems. As described above, consequences, both good and bad, accompany neogeography.