As a neogeography project, I decided to make a map of places in the greater San Diego area that intrigues me. I visit San Diego quite often because of friends at UCSD. There is beautiful scenery by the Mission Bay Park as well as magnificent tourist destination, SeaWorld. Watching the sunset from coastlines of Coronado is by far the most amazing place I have ever been to. From the famous Chili Fries from Lolita's to 40oz porterhouse for two at Cowboy Star, San Diego also has my favorite restaurants. There are also other attractions such as the USS Midway museum, an Aircraft Carrier-turned museum that demonstrates the immense scale of the US Military protecting freedom around the world.
View My Visits to San Diego in a larger map
Neogeography is the geo-spatial side of Web 2.0.
User-created content combined with existing maps to give meaning and share
spatial information with other users. Neogeography embodies the idea that
spatial knowledge contains a personal meaning.
Although neogeography is widely accepted and appreciated, as
with anything, there are some downsides to this idea. One of the major pitfalls
of neogeography is misinformation. Since there is no regulating agency (such as
USGS) there is a great amount of discrepancy regarding the information
presented by neogeography. Unlike GIS, where qualified individuals go to great
depths to catch and correct wrong information, neogeographers (many of whom are
amateurs like me) may present wrong information regardless of malicious intent.
Also, since there are no requirements or set regulations, every user follow
their self-made guidelines (if any). This leads to a map that is very difficult
to read and interpret. Another major disadvantage of neogeography is the loss
of privacy. Due to the fact that many neogeography maps contain personal
meaning to the space around us, there is a possibility of great leak of
personal information. Since anyone who accesses this blog (made public) can
access my map (made public by following the link), they can predict where I
will be when I visit San Diego without my knowledge.
Regardless of these downsides of neogeography, it still
stands as a positive symbol of personal understanding of spatial information. I
don’t see it too distant in the future when users will start to tag their
pictures and videos based on location, which will allow for another type of
social-spatial analysis. It also serves a way for people like you and me to get
interested in maps as a whole, and moving to a more sophisticated study such as
GIS. The flaws mentioned above can be reduced by implementation of a bit of
regulations and safety mechanisms.
