IELTS, ESP, EAP and CALL

TED Talks Map designer Aris Venetikidis is fascinated by the maps we draw in our minds as we move around a city -- less like street maps, more like schematics or wiring diagrams, abstract images of relationships between places.

This video touches on numerous themes that are crucial to geographers including: 1) how our minds arrange spatial information, 2) how to best graphically represent spatial information in a useful manner for your audience and 3) how mapping a place can be the impetus for changing outdated systems. This is the story of how a cartographer working to improve a local transportation system map, which in turn, started city projects to improve the infrastructure and public utilities in Dublin, Ireland. This cartographer argues that the best map design for a transport system needs to conform to how on cognitive mental mapping works more so than geographic accuracy (like so many subway maps do).

Tags: transportation, urban, mapping, cartography, planning, TED, video, unit 7 cities.

This is an very intriguing map that shows different urban layouts and applies the concept of population density at the city scale and compares it to the global population.  What is everyone lived in the city of New York (at New York's population density)?  How big would that city be?