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spatial information in a useful manner for your audience and 3) how mapping a place can be the impetus for changing outdated systems.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.
See on www.ted.com
GEOGRAPHY EDUCATION 
October 14, 2012 at 12:54 pm
This is very interesting and seems like a very large under taking that he did on the public transportation systems in Dublin. It is great that he did this to make the bus lines much more easier to understand, and how they introduced the rapid transport lines into the city cutting down on the number of buses that run throughout the city.