Villanova University, Department of Mathematical Sciences

Cartographiometry (MAT 1210/ GEO 1700)

(©  copyright 1996-1999, Timothy G. Feeman and Elaine F. Bosowski.)

Laboratory Exercise:  A "Turf" Map

(turflab.htm)

From memory, draw a map of your primary school years "turf". "Turf" means that area or set of areas which you occupied, used or traversed with sufficient regularity and assurance that you considered it for all practical purposes to be the domain of you and your friends.

By primary school years we refer principally to ages six to nine years. For those who moved during this period, choose the location in which you lived for most of the time.

The sketch should show, at the least, the major and minor paths, activity nodes, and landmarks. It should also probably include important barriers and boundaries, along with the forbidden and dangerous areas and the like. The emphasis should be on the personal elements of your turf -- on things important to you, not just on the physical features of the landscape.

Include a legend and a title for your map, specifying the name of the town and the dates of the activity shown. Give some indication of scale and orientation, even though these may be relative and not at all geometrically precise.

Remember, this is a map from memory -- consult only the information stored in your "personal atlas".

Try to answer the following questions about your finished turf map.

1. What is the scale of the map?
2. Is there any consistent scale?
3. Can you draw a scale (or set of scales) for this map?
4. Is there direction or orientation represented on this map?
5. Can you place a "North" arrow on this map?
6. Are shapes of objects represented accurately?
7. Are distances between objects and places represented accurately?
8. Are distances measurable consistently on your map?
9. In what units are distances to be measured?
10. Are sizes of areas and objects represented accurately? (Is your house really as wide as a street?)
11. How could your mapping of this "turf" be made more accurate?
12. What is meant by "accurate"?
13. What can be used to measure "accuracy" for this assignment?
14. Any other comments you might have about your map?

From Close-up: How To Read The American City, by Grady Clay; Praeger, New York; 1973

"Turf is landscape spelled out; it says who goes where, who belongs, and who does not; it is admonitory and administered. Turfing messages are writ large across cities in new property lines and identified boundaries; on maps and in documents with hedges, fences, walls, curbs, by means of signs, symbols, markers, locks, directions, and warnings; and beyond all this, in human images and attitudes. The entire American landscape is being partitioned -- faster and in greater detail than ever before -- into turf. I am using turf to indicate territorial space that is used or occupied, either principally or exclusively, by one identifying group and thus made unaccessible to others." (Clay, pp. 153-156)

"Above all, turf is a two-edged sword, serving both to keep 'them' out and to keep 'us' within. The very act of setting up turf -- of building a fence, posting a sign, passing an ordinance, forbidding newcomers to vote, levying a tax on transients -- serves to reinforce the separateness of those on the inside. To turf is to apply a special form of surgery to our surroundings, cutting it out of our lives, withholding its information. It constitutes 'the martial declaration of the intent to repel all delinquent perception and all illicit communication' as the British architectural writer Robin Evans has observed. Taken cumulatively, it is shrinking our perception, our mental images of the environment, and thus our capacity to deal with it. Not the least of our losses is the ability to know and thus to intervene in worlds beyond the walls." (Clay, p. 175)

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24-may-1998