Weekly Roundup 126 – 22nd July to 28th July

FEATURE REPORT/ ARTICLE OF THE WEEK

‘To Learn About a City, Visit Its Neighborhoods’
Authored by Tara Lerman

We all travel- for work, for leisure, as a hobby, for meetings, etc. Travelling has become a lot easier off late, with various travel guides and TripAdvisor-esque websites. We can have all the necessary information about popular sight seeing and eating spots at the touch of a button. It’s become highly convenient but is it letting us explore what the essence of the city really is about?

There is a lot more to a city has than its old monuments and swanky museums. A city is also about how its residents occupy these spaces and add multiple layers of narrative to it. These narratives are best experienced through self exploration by going off the map. Sometimes, the best way to understand a city is to visit the neighborhoods where its history has been or is being made.

After all, there is a whole different thrill to having a taste of the real, unfiltered urban experience, which in the end makes those travel memories fonder. It also brings in new business opportunities as if tourists were to change their attitude when they visit a new city, the industry that caters to them would follow.

Read the whole piece here.

Published by Planetizen.

ONLINE PUBLICATION OF THE WEEK

‘Invisible Cities’
Book by Italo Calvino, William Weaver (Translator); Published by Harcourt Brace & Company

We travel to find ourselves, to know our world as we learn the world inside of us. Some say the mind is the last frontier of exploration, and Marco Polo would probably agree. His journeys to other lands in this book are about discovering what is inside his mind as much as discovering what is in the world.

These are tales of cities visited by Marco Polo, as told to Kublai Khan. They are simple descriptions of places making this book a typical work of fantasy, science fiction, and magical realism. It is a beautiful narration of the architecture and urban fabric of various places seeming to be cities as experienced through various different emotions, ideologies and sensory simulations.

Read the publication here.

VIDEO/PODCAST OF THE WEEK

‘Happy Maps’
Created by TED Talks

How do we travel in our own city? How often do we take a detour from the fastest route as shown by Google Maps? How often have we been a tourist in our own city or found new aspects to it? Why do we not take a more beautiful or peaceful way to work just to save some extra travel time? What difference can a detour and a few changes in the urban setting make?

Here is a video attempting to answer these very questions.