So here I am, several hours after a fall. Yes, it was ice, not my basement staircase. My left hand will probably out of service for a few days. In any case, I have had a hard time about which maps I like the most. What I have decided though, is what map I find the most interesting. That's the Edmonton Crime Map.
I often get asked where I live. When I tell people I live in Riverbend, it's automatically assumed that I'm 'loaded.' And of course, that's not true at all. I therefore found the Crime Map very interesting because of the way it paints certain city neighbourhoods as no-go areas while others (like my own) are shown to be heavens on Earth.
When I was new in Edmonton, I worked for 8 months in Millwoods. I usually worked afternoons, so I finished work around 10-11 PM and would get home by midnight. Yet, in those 8 months I never experienced the "Millwoods is Killwoods" stuff. Bear in mind, I was very new to Edmonton. So I had new clue what neighbourhoods were 'good' and which were 'bad.' It was after I began university and stopped working that I realized Millwoods was unsafe. I never experienced it myself.
On the other hand, my current neighbourhood, which is supposedly were safe and upscale. I have had a depressed person go crazy and commit suicide. I came home from university one day to find out that police had blocked off the entire area, and two police snipers where inside my house, aiming at the supposed armed, depressed person who was hold up in an apartment across the street. There were dozens of officers in the area running around with automatic weapons..
So I'm not really sure how to read the map. Does it really reflect one's experience in a neighbourhood? May be? But I haven't really noticed it.
As for my Edmonton, I can map it. I hardly ever travel by car. So all my adventures happen in and around ETS accessible areas, mostly areas that are accessible by the LRT. Which, by the way, got stuck at the university LRT station a couple of weeks ago. While we were waiting in a packed LRT, I had three high school kids standing next to me. When we finally got to Health Sciences one of them told the others that he hates the next station because all the people who immigrate from 'Belgravia' live in that neighbourhood and he hates Belgravians.
Since I found no such country on the map of Europe, as he alleged, I propose that we declare Belgravia an independent state and establish passport and customs control offices on both ends of the Belgravia LRT Station?
That way, my map will become more interesting. I'll be passing through a different country everyday to reach University.
I often get asked where I live. When I tell people I live in Riverbend, it's automatically assumed that I'm 'loaded.' And of course, that's not true at all. I therefore found the Crime Map very interesting because of the way it paints certain city neighbourhoods as no-go areas while others (like my own) are shown to be heavens on Earth.
When I was new in Edmonton, I worked for 8 months in Millwoods. I usually worked afternoons, so I finished work around 10-11 PM and would get home by midnight. Yet, in those 8 months I never experienced the "Millwoods is Killwoods" stuff. Bear in mind, I was very new to Edmonton. So I had new clue what neighbourhoods were 'good' and which were 'bad.' It was after I began university and stopped working that I realized Millwoods was unsafe. I never experienced it myself.
On the other hand, my current neighbourhood, which is supposedly were safe and upscale. I have had a depressed person go crazy and commit suicide. I came home from university one day to find out that police had blocked off the entire area, and two police snipers where inside my house, aiming at the supposed armed, depressed person who was hold up in an apartment across the street. There were dozens of officers in the area running around with automatic weapons..
So I'm not really sure how to read the map. Does it really reflect one's experience in a neighbourhood? May be? But I haven't really noticed it.
As for my Edmonton, I can map it. I hardly ever travel by car. So all my adventures happen in and around ETS accessible areas, mostly areas that are accessible by the LRT. Which, by the way, got stuck at the university LRT station a couple of weeks ago. While we were waiting in a packed LRT, I had three high school kids standing next to me. When we finally got to Health Sciences one of them told the others that he hates the next station because all the people who immigrate from 'Belgravia' live in that neighbourhood and he hates Belgravians.
Since I found no such country on the map of Europe, as he alleged, I propose that we declare Belgravia an independent state and establish passport and customs control offices on both ends of the Belgravia LRT Station?
That way, my map will become more interesting. I'll be passing through a different country everyday to reach University.
I live in Belgravia, and I second that motion - I could then have triple citizenship! US, Canada and... Belgravia! Assuming that they wouldn't make me give up my Canadian citizenship to become Belgravian...
ReplyDeleteI think it's interesting how contrast your personal lived experience of a place with the social history that precedes it.
ReplyDeleteCan we reduce a place's social history to a simplified common ground? How do lived experiences subvert or entrench views of a certain area? Or maybe simplification is required to function effectively in our day-to-day lives...
I actually really like the idea of viewing the city as a collection (continent?) of different countries. Every area of the city has such a unique history and offers up its own distinct way of living that it makes a lot of sense to describe it like that; my experience living in the west end is not the same thing as living in yes, Riverbend or Mill Creek or wherever. (I live by the mall, for one thing. My community probably only exists at least partly due to the Ghermizians.) And yes, I'd go with the idea that conceptualizing a city as a series of different countries *does* make it easier to function within it. Even only to give it some kind of stature or...(that is so not the word I'm looking for) beyond "random community in this part of town". Giving it "country" status allows for a history, I guess. Or a more personal way of experiencing your community. And I have no idea where I'm going with this, so I should stop.
ReplyDeleteI've had the same (disorienting!) experience in my neighbourhood. I live in Blue Quill, which is considered to be a "safe" south-side neighbourhood, and one day I looked out my window to find a police sniper mobilising in my backyard behind a pine tree. Strangely, the police don't seem to be required to a) give an explanation for what the hell is going on, b) knock on your door and inform you that they will be using your backyard for a stakeout.
ReplyDeleteI never did find out what was going on, but it has changed the way I think. It's not that I feel less safe here -- more that I realise safety isn't localised to certain areas, regardless of what the official Edmonton Crime Map may try to tell/show us.