This map created by the World Bank shows urban outdoor particulate air pollution. It assigns different colored points for varying degrees of pollution intensity. I think this visual representation of global urban pollution is interesting because it gives a good idea of which areas contribute the most. I was surprised to see US cities fared quite well, with most cities dark or light green, because the US is always getting blamed for global warming. Of course it is also no surprise to see developing areas like China and India did poorly. This map may be a little misleading, though, because it only counts PM10 particles, and some of the most dangerous particles to human health are much smaller than that.
Originally published in book called Nordisk Familjebok, the next map I picked is of Stockholm's Gamla Stan, or "old town" district. Although there is no scale on this map, the island is only about a kilometer across, making it an optimal size for walking. I am interested in urban geography, and when I visited Stockholm I was struck by how easy it was to get around without motorized transportation. Gamla Stan struck me as the exact opposite of Los Angeles, with its small, winding cobbled streets, and vibrant street life. Car infrastructure was minimal, but I can't imagine wanting to take a car through anyway. I like how this map pretty much tells you all of that, and that looking at a map of Los Angeles would tell you about its grid layout of megablocks, and you would know it was a city for cars. I love that the different character of the two cities can be ascertained just from looking at a map (at least to some extent).
The last map I sel
ected also relates to my interest in urban patterns. This is a map of the growth of Baltimore, Maryland from 1792 to 1992, constructed by NASA using USGS Landsat data. The map therefore spans the majority of American history, and provides a very interesting view of American urban growth patterns. I think it is amazing that urban sprawl has spread so much that almost all land in this snapshot is covered in the last slide, and that was almost 20 years ago! Visuals like this are very helpful to show people how devastating human development has truly been to our environment. To me, the growing sprawl almost looks like a organism, like a mold spreading across the landscape, and I think in a way, the likeness is very telling.
Originally published in book called Nordisk Familjebok, the next map I picked is of Stockholm's Gamla Stan, or "old town" district. Although there is no scale on this map, the island is only about a kilometer across, making it an optimal size for walking. I am interested in urban geography, and when I visited Stockholm I was struck by how easy it was to get around without motorized transportation. Gamla Stan struck me as the exact opposite of Los Angeles, with its small, winding cobbled streets, and vibrant street life. Car infrastructure was minimal, but I can't imagine wanting to take a car through anyway. I like how this map pretty much tells you all of that, and that looking at a map of Los Angeles would tell you about its grid layout of megablocks, and you would know it was a city for cars. I love that the different character of the two cities can be ascertained just from looking at a map (at least to some extent).
The last map I sel
ected also relates to my interest in urban patterns. This is a map of the growth of Baltimore, Maryland from 1792 to 1992, constructed by NASA using USGS Landsat data. The map therefore spans the majority of American history, and provides a very interesting view of American urban growth patterns. I think it is amazing that urban sprawl has spread so much that almost all land in this snapshot is covered in the last slide, and that was almost 20 years ago! Visuals like this are very helpful to show people how devastating human development has truly been to our environment. To me, the growing sprawl almost looks like a organism, like a mold spreading across the landscape, and I think in a way, the likeness is very telling.
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