A bifurcation of views

topography and history

There is a lot that SQL offers specifically to me but obviously to the analytics world writ large. Initially my goals was to share coding snippets and tutorials for integrating SQL into data curation work flows.

Specifically working with Census data in QGIS — it was such a power up for skills and capabilities. I noticed the focus on the tools and not the bigger task at hand.

What questions are we asking of our natural world order?

“The city absorbs history, reflecting and deflecting the makers of power.” — Walter Benjamin, The Storyteller

I am fascinated by writers that focus on “place”. It completely informs how I see not only the built infrastructure but those that occupy and interact with city frameworks.

One of my favorite littlest book stores in NYC is nestled within the Neue Galerie. The museum is located caddy-corner from the Metropolitan Museum of Art on Fifth Avenue. I often walked past the restaurant windows within, noting the allure of what appeared to be lively conversation and merriment. One morning after crisscrossing Central Park thinking I would grab breakfast at the Balcony Lounge inside the MET, forgetting that the museum was indeed closed on Wednesdays, I came upon the Neue Gallerie’s Café Sabarsky and finally entered as a patron.

After that, it has been part of my regular routine when in Manhattan. The dream of a bookstore is curated within an inch of its life but it works. The Storyteller by Walter Benjamin is my latest treasure. Admittedly I was sold on the illustrations by Paul Klee but the quote above is why I persist.

Thinking of a city as being both topographical and historical even when zooming to neighborhood levels is fodder for story building.

I have been building city views for workshops and talks by using Unreal Engine — a gaming platform. The ability to have SQL, Python, QGIS, Cesium Ion, Blender and now gaming frameworks as tools to visually and spatially engage has been monumental.

Maybe LLMs are eventually fading out the need to learn how to code but when we become streamlined and liberated from intellectual tasks — what is left?

“Belleville is perceived through a bifurcation of views: a topographical one, which sees the shapes of the land, its hills and depressions, or in this case its sand, which is evoked in the miserable stones and poor ugly housing; a historical one, which sees colonial imperialism, the snatching of Morocco by the French, Morocco’s desolation and all that is implied in terms of political history and morality.” — Walter Benjamin