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One city's ‘urban cosmography’

Illustrations of urban scenes naturally describe the physical characteristics of the places depicted. These representations also express implicitly broader beliefs which tie the spatial order of the surrounding world to local systems, institutions, and human actions. Images of a city embody, therefore, an ‘urban cosmography’, a concept inspired by early modern artisans' attempts to chart the contours of the world, both known and unknown. Seen from this perspective, historical graphics such as maps, posters, and birds-eye views document a city's position within a continually evolving universal order. This paper will review graphics drawn from the history of one city in particular: Baltimore, Maryland. Like other cities on the eastern seaboard of the US, Baltimore has been represented by diverse visual arts for more than two centuries. With the advent of digital and social media, Baltimore's development will depend even more upon the city's local and global interrelationships. ‘Urban cosmography’ is, therefore, a useful conceptual prism through which one may perceive the link between the city's historical legacy and contemporary urban challenges. One consequence is that visual tropes for traditional urban polarities – ‘growth’ versus ‘decay’, for instance – may be superseded by new symbols that incorporate both.