The greatest cartographical inventions of the 21st century are the Webb telescope and Google Street View. The first peers into distant realms and notes the initial faint stirrings of a newborn star. The second looks into an antiques store in a small town and picks up a detail on the door handle that tells you it used to be a Woolworth.
If I had to choose which one I’d study for the rest of my days, it would be the fruit of the ever-roaming Google cars. Yes, yes, the Webb produces pictures of wonder and beauty, as well as knowledge about the cosmos we inhabit. But there’s something about a small-town movie marquee, a faded painted sign for Coca-Cola, or a proud little building in a two-block burg with the owner’s name on it engraved in stone. Google has given us—for free!—the most extensive record of American urban history ever created, and it’s endlessly fascinating.
And unutterably depressing. Sometimes.
