A place’s underlying geography can be overlooked even by its lifelong residents

Evidence

I was able to figure out which street was which and thus pinpoint my house, otherwise indistinguishable amid the rows of tiny faux-Eichler bungalows. But there was one odd, wiggly road that didn’t seem to correspond to anything, that is, until I realized that it was not a road but Saratoga Creek. — Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing, 430

Categorization

• SEED: Opening anecdote for an essay on how maps (and cartographic attention) reveal what daily life conceals about the shape of home.
• XREF: Echoes the ‘bioregionalism’ thread and the reader’s framing of attention as world-constitution; also links to similar ‘name the creek’ exercises in naturalist field guides like Robert Macfarlane’s. — connects to: Knowing a place deeply makes people care for and protect it. — Karla Armbruster, Book Review: LifePlace: Bioregional…, 9; Empires affect vast regions while their home populations remain unaware those places exist. — Rob Nixon, Slow Violence and the Environmentalism…, 99; Learning one place’s name can unravel a whole unnoticed topography — Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing: Resisting the…, 432 (+6 more)
• yield-rescued: below the book’s yield-target cutoff, included anyway for connecting to: Knowing a place deeply makes people care for and protect it. — Karla Armbruster, Book Review: LifePlace: Bioregional…, 9; Empires affect vast regions while their home populations remain unaware those places exist. — Rob Nixon, Slow Violence and the Environmentalism…, 99; Learning one place’s name can unravel a whole unnoticed topography — Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing: Resisting the…, 432 (+6 more)