Mapping for the 21st century urban agendas through the lens of super-diversity

Abstract

This essay takes its origins from research the authors conducted in a four year partnership implementing the urban energy transition agenda in a series of sites for the Municipality of Amsterdam. The design process encountered a reality of social-ecological systems much more complex than what is represented in official abstract and isotropic maps. Standardization is prevailing at the ex-pense of super-diversity. Therefore, based on their personal background and experience the authors initiate a brief excursus on the sense of the act of mapping and representing local communities through the lens of super-diversity, understood here as the infinite complexity of social-ecological systems. In the final part they postulate how maps should be approached to be truly effective towards nowadays pressing urban agendas.