Neogeography

West Hollywood- A Great Place to Live

This is a map that takes us from Melrose Ave. & Van Ness, to Fairfax & 3rd Street while pin-pointing attractions such as shopping, dining, entertainment, public parks, schools, and libraries and their proximity to the surrounding community. The purpose of this map is to let viewers get a feel for the community of West Hollywood and what it has to offer.

View West Hollywood- A Great Place to Live in a larger map

Neogeography is a new form of geography in which anyone can make and share maps of anything using tools which already exist. Programs such as My Maps on googlemaps allows virtually anyone to make and publicly share a map on anything they choose. This seems like a great idea, but there are consequences for this. For example, the information displayed on these maps may not be correct since random people are making these maps. A person using these maps can be misguided or given wrong information. Not only can these maps provide wrong information, but these maps may also provide opinionated information. For instance, if someone does not like a certain cafe, they may write something negative about it under the description which may negatively affect this cafe.

These maps can also use information collected to publicly display personal information. For example, someone has made a map of Proposition 8 supporters. They took information of who or which businesses donated money and how much to this proposition, which was against gay marriage. This can be bad for these businesses or can create problems for those who donated because this is a very sensitive issue which should be kept private for the safety of everyone. Information like this can be incorporated into programs such as this which is a major pitfall of neogeography. Neogeography is a great new form of geography, but users must be really careful in what information they use and how they display it.