Look. Look. *Look*. - by Mike Sowden

everythingisamazing.substack.com/p/look-look-look

This is actually what I did when I drove cab in Iowa City. Admittedly, Iowa City is a postage stamp compared to London, but I'd only been in town for two weeks before I got a job driving cab. This was way before GPS or Siri; cell phones were still relatively rare, and my pocket computer was a Palm Pilot. I had a paper map, and dispatchers who could give me point to point directions.

But I also took the time to read the city. I learned this delivering pizzas in high school. When you're driving down a street, look at all the cross streets and try to memorize the order they go in. Pretty soon you'll be able to place streets in the order they go in.

But also, I started reading these wonderful books by Irving Weber that were an architectural history of Iowa City, diving into its development through detailed stories of the different buildings downtown. It was fascinating to be sitting in the cab, reading about a town, and then go driving through it, and see its story physically laid out around you.