The Local Map
We don’t always walk to get somewhere or to buy something. Sometimes we’re just looking for a place to catch our breath.
Something I keep noticing: the maps on our phones are really good at two things. Getting us somewhere fast, and pointing us toward something to buy. What they’ve never helped me with is finding somewhere to just sit for a minute.
Barcelona’s superblocks have been interesting to me for the same reason. Whole blocks where through-traffic is restricted, so the streets go back to the people who live on them. It’s the same idea as that sign, across a whole city.
Every street is a shortcut, so traffic cuts through all nine blocks.
So I’ve been working on a map that fills in over time with the places that help you reset, calm down, or think. It learns them from what you tell it, and it never sends your location or anything else away. Over time it becomes your own map of those places.
It lives on your phone, opens instantly even when you’re offline, and never tracks where you go.
And it only does what you tell it. In the places we go to catch our breath, I think that’s how AI should behave: it acts on what you declare, and keeps a record of what it did.
The case
Why I think this needs to exist.
The moments
Three everyday moments where a map like this helps.
- 01 The sensory decompression zone Sometimes all I need is fifteen minutes away from the noise, close by, right now.
- 02 The forty-five minute gap Forty-five minutes between things, and every seat nearby wants you to buy something first. Sometimes you just want a bench outside.
- 03 Seasonal Memory and the Right to Forget A map that learns to hold the seasons must also learn how to let go.
The build
How it works, and how you can build your own.
- 01 How it works How the map turns a sentence like “I need to hide and read a book in the sun” into a place it can find for you.
- 02 What you get Nine things the Local Map gives you that the map already on your phone does not, told through one difficult afternoon.
- 03 Build it yourself A prompt you can give your own AI so it builds this map for you.