Why it has to exist
Four problems I keep coming back to with the maps we use today, and who feels each one most.
Ask your standard map for somewhere to sit and it’ll find you the nearest coffee shop. I’ve been thinking about why that is, and I keep coming back to four things.
01 The Yelpification of calm spaces Scarcity
When a peaceful spot ends up on a public app, it tends not to stay peaceful for long. A hidden old tree or a patch of grass nobody knows about can fill up fast once it’s listed. A map that keeps your places on your phone never puts them out there in the first place.
A river spot a friend showed you once. Four people at it on a good day for ten years, and two hundred the summer after somebody tagged it in a list of hidden gems.
The one bench in the park that gets the afternoon sun just right. Once it showed up online, it was hardly ever free again.
Less romantic, but the same thing. The street space near your building that was always free, until an app started sending people to it.
02 Location data exploitation Exposure
Where you go to cry, to decompress, or to ground yourself says a lot about you. It’s some of the most personal information there is, and I don’t think it belongs on anyone else’s server.
The route you take when something has gone wrong. Nobody in your life knows about it. An ad company could probably work it out within a week, just from where your phone lingers.
A place you go for reasons that are nobody else’s business. To a database, it’s just the same spot every Tuesday evening.
One place, eleven visits in two weeks, all after dark. Anyone holding that data could guess at a story you never chose to tell them.
03 The offline reality of nature Failure
Apps that need the internet tend to stop working right where the good spots are. The more peaceful a place is, the weaker the signal usually is, so the map gives out just when you need it.
One bar in the car park and none past it. The map that was going to show you the way is a grey rectangle with a spinner on it.
The river path below street level, where the buildings block everything. You are eight minutes from a train station and nothing loads.
Not a signal problem at all. Eleven percent battery, and every app reaching out to a server is using up what’s left.
04 Algorithmic versus emotional routing Wrong question
Our standard maps are built to get us somewhere fast or to help us buy something. When what you need is somewhere to be for twenty minutes, neither of those helps much.
You asked for somewhere to sit, and it gave you the quickest walk to a coffee chain.
It finds you the most popular place nearby, which is the opposite of what you were looking for.
There’s no word to type. “Dry ground, out of the wind, sun on my face, nobody looking at me” isn’t something any map I’ve used knows how to search for.
What it should do instead
In a place like this, I think AI has to behave differently. It should do only what I’ve told it to, the same way every time, and keep a record of what it did.
Who this is for
- The Sovereign You want your data, and the device it lives on, to be yours, on your own terms.
- The Cartographer You know your neighbourhood by its hidden benches and how it changes with the seasons, not just by its street names.
- The Sanctuary Seeker You look for calm, low-noise places on purpose, to rest, recharge, and move through the city at your own pace.