| Wednesday, January 24, 2001 |
 | Blue Ruin has posted this link to a physical representation of the relationship between the stations of the London Underground. To be honest, it disappoints me a little. It's too sane and too rational, and it presents too logical a picture of the interrelation between the world and Subterranea. If it's this bloody simple, why bother with a schematic representation at all?
The only answer I can come up with is aesthetic. The London Underground map is one of the most beautiful unnaturally-occuring systems known to mankind, and has inspired its own tributes. And, of course, a school of imitators.
Manhattanites, we can see, find walking north and south almost impossible, while their bridge-and-tunnel neighbours find Manhattan bewildering, depending as it does on the ability to move east and west under one's own steam. The entire Paris Metro runs at a rakish Gallic angle. Only Sydney can take you to Kissing Point and love you until you're Paramatta.
Being able to understand a public transport system is one of the first things that really makes you feel you belong in a place - one reason why the New York Subway is such a cruel joke on a multicultural city. Which is perhaps why I felt so alienated yesterday when, in a fug of exhaustion, I realised I had travelled north instead of south, a mistake which makes that whole zig-zag stutter irrelevant by comparison.
I don't want to have to deal with this city unless I feel up for taking it on.
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