🌎 The View From Above | Issue #11
Finding a new perspective of place using Google Earth
Placeful is a weekly newsletter exploring sense of place, sustainability, and the actions we can take to more deeply engage with our communities and wild spaces. Each week covers a new topic. To learn more about the “why” behind Placeful, start here.
Moab, Utah, the community I call home, is uniquely situated: nestled in a valley between two walls of red rock called the Rim, with the Colorado River flowing through. To the east is a small mountain range, the La Sal Mountains, that seem to appear out of nowhere. To the west is Arches National Park.
A combination of high elevation points and access to them via public lands gives us a unique vantage point. Whether from the Moab Rim Trail, Sand Flats Recreation Area, or high up in the La Sals, we can see down to our little community from high above. One frame of vision contains the entirety of the place where we carry out the activities of our daily lives, from going to the grocery store, to walking home from work, to the city parks, roads, and businesses that create the infrastructure of our town. From these viewpoints, we can even see the path the Mill Creek takes, tumbling down from the La Sal mountains, meandering through town, past the High School and under Main Street, to eventually reach the wetlands along the Colorado River.
The view from above
People travel for miles to see views like this; there is a specific feeling wrapped up in it that is difficult to articulate (though for those with a fear of heights, maybe it is clearer). To me, it feels like seeing a photo of my whole family; I know who they are and what they look like, but it is heartwarming to see them together in one frame.
According to a post in Psychology Today, there are a variety of reasons why we are attracted to views from above. Some of it has to do with novelty, and the desire to seek out new perspectives and experiences separate from our more predictable day-to-day lives. Another reason is due to evolutionary psychology, and our human tendency to prefer high ground because it provides safety, prospect, and refuge. Additionally, as one commenter noted, when we take in a macroscopic view, its flaws are more difficult to delineate than from up close. This aids us in idealizing our communities and wild places and imagining them without the less pleasing parts, like rundown buildings or trashed campsites.
There is also just a coolness factor to looking from the top of a mountain ridge or cliffside; it makes us feel insignificant in a soothing way, similar to how it feels when we look up at the stars at night.
Looking down from a great height at our homes offers another layer of complexity. The feelings of smallness still hold true, but are combined a feeling of groundedness. Looking down from the Moab Rim, I can point to my neighborhood and my place of work and say “those are my places.” The places that, across the whole wide world, have significant meaning to me, and where I spend the majority of my days. The waypoints of my life, where I currently expend the majority of my physical and mental energy.
My home.
There is also something shocking about seeing my community from above. If I can see the whole town in one frame of view, how is it even possible that I haven’t met all of the people around me? It seems impossible to know that everyone I live and work near is encompassed in my field of vision, but I have a personal relationship with so few.
The view from way above
When is the last time you thought to pull up Google Earth? This is a separate application than Google Maps. If you remember it as a bit of software you had to download, let me tell you that it has gotten even better since then. Each week, I use an associated program, Earth View, to select a photo for my newsletter caption.
Google Earth is an amazing tool. And during this virtual age, it is one way that we can use the internet to gain insight, learn about, and deepen our connection to our communities, and the natural spaces around us.
Using Google Earth, with no purpose other than to explore, is a chance for us to let our curiosity lead the way. How often is that the case in our day-to-day lives? Google Earth is not telling us where to look, or feeding us any information. It is just there, and like any reference material, we get to decide how and why it is useful to us.
For those of us that are new to a particular place, exploring through Google Earth can also help us feel situated. I’ve noticed in my many interstate moves that the first few months in a new place are difficult. Not knowing much about the landscape, businesses, distance between landmarks, or even how to find the cardinal directions contributes to a feeling of placelessness, like sitting in one of those blank white rooms from the Matrix. It takes time to fill in the blank spaces; Google Earth can help with this, too.
As our country and world face an increasing threat from the coronavirus, I imagine for some that our individual geographies are starting to feel smaller and smaller. Not everyone has access to outdoor recreation, or a safe place to be by oneself in nature. Some folks at increased risk have barely left the safety of their homes in months.
I wanted to write about Google Earth today because I believe it is one small way to change things up, to introduce a feeling of geographic exploration back into our lives. To see our own communities from a new angle, and get outside of our homes, our backyards, our neighborhoods for a little while. To remind ourselves of places we have forgotten, or fondly trace the commute we used to despise.
We will each get something different out of the experience, and though it likely won’t be as profound as my writing suggests, it is a new perspective — of which the process of attaining has its own inherent value.
With love,
Emily
Placeful Practice
Naturally, this week’s actionable step is to poke around on Google Earth. Type in your home city or even your home address and explore from there!
Where do your eyes go on the map? What do you feel yourself naturally pulled to “travel” to? Does it provide any insight into what is important to you within your community?
Here are links for the web version. For the app version, check out Google Play or the App Store.
Placeful is a weekly email newsletter containing personal narratives and reporting on sense of place and sustainability. Each week I delve into a new topic, wrapping it up with an action item that will help readers foster deeper connections to the natural, cultural, built, and historic environments around them.
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