Interactive Urban Study
Novaliches-Lagro Sense of Place
Close your eyes and picture your neighborhood. If someone handed you a blank sheet of paper right now and asked you to sketch your daily world from memory - no Google Maps allowed - what would make the cut? Would you draw the towering SM City Fairview, Fairview Terraces, and the elevated MRT-7 pillars where you brave the rush-hour commute? Or would you sketch the corner sari-sari store, the parish chapel, the pares stand, and the winding iskinita (alleyway) where your neighbors actually know your name?
Across five neighborhoods in northern Quezon City's booming Novaliches-Lagro Growth Area, 60 residents sketched their everyday mental maps from memory. By translating these hand-drawn Kevin Lynch cognitive maps into binary topological matrices (1 = drawn, 0 = absent) and measuring neighbor-to-neighbor overlap with Jaccard Similarity Coefficients, this symbolic interactionist study uncovers an eye-opening urban paradox: mega-malls help people orient themselves, but they do not hold a community together. Where rapid high-rise commercialization erases everyday vernacular hangouts, residents experience "in-place (symbolic) displacement" - feeling like strangers on their very own street long before anyone is physically evicted.
Study Sample & Pop.
60 Maps
Across 5 barangays (227,658 residents)
Highest Cohesion
J = 0.56 to 1.00
Brgy. Santa Monica (CL-SM) sub-matrix
Severe Fragmentation
J = 0.00 to 0.139
Pasong Putik Proper (CL-PPP) frontier
Tracked Landmarks
23 Core / 48 Raw
1,800 pairwise neighbor comparisons
A Tale of Five Barangays: Where Does Shared Memory Hold - and Where Does It Fracture?
Click any neighborhood cluster along the Commonwealth-Regalado-Quirino spine to inspect how development pressure shapes residents' mental maps, sample quotas, and local sense of place.
Tip: Click any colored barangay zone on the map or use the buttons above to compare neighborhood mental maps.
Barangay Santa Monica
Sub-Matrix Jaccard Range
0.56 to 1.00
2020 Population
51,834
Map Sample Quota
n = 14 maps
Maps 029 to 042
Avg Landmarks Drawn
5.7 features
Synchronized Memory
Located in the historic Novaliches district (over 31,000 persons/sq.km), Santa Monica is characterized by long residency tenures and low turnover. Neighbors share a nearly identical mental image of their community - anchored not by mega-malls, but by human-scale vernacular landmarks like Santa Monica Parish, Bayan Market, traditional sari-sari stores, pedestrian alleys (iskinita), and the Tullahan River boundary.
Dominant Cognitive Anchors in This Cluster
Top Drawn Landmarks in Santa Monica (CL-SM) (% of cluster maps)
From Hand-Drawn Sketches to Topological Math: Test the Jaccard Engine Yourself
Kevin Lynch's (1960) mental mapping method is famous, but how do you compare 60 different hand-drawn sketches mathematically? This study encodes every sketch into a 23-feature binary checklist (1 = drawn, 0 = absent) and computes the Jaccard Similarity Coefficient: shared landmarks divided by total unique landmarks drawn across both maps.
60 adult residents (at least 1 yr tenure) sketched their neighborhood on blank paper without basemaps or satellite cues.
48 raw drawn items were standardized into 23 core spatial features (16 Nodes/Landmarks + 7 Paths/Edges).
Each map becomes a binary vector x_i,j in {0,1}; maps are grouped into 1st-Order (43%), 2nd-Order (47%), and 3rd-Order (10%).
1,800 pairwise comparisons (|A AND B| / |A OR B|) reveal whether neighbors share a mental city (J->1) or diverge (J->0).
Interactive Mental Map Comparator: Compare Any Two Residents
Select any two participants from the 60-map dataset - or try a featured neighborhood pair - to inspect their binary vectors and Jaccard overlap.
Live Topological Overlap
Shared |A AND B|
6
Total Unique |A OR B|
6
Identical cognitive feature alignment
Showing both the 48-feature full matrix score and the 23-feature core overlap below.
23-Feature Topological Checklist Alignment (Green = Both Drew | Teal = Only A | Amber = Only B)
23-Feature J = 0.833Visualizing Cognitive Cohesion: The 60x60 Jaccard Matrix & Similarity Network
Explore the pairwise Jaccard similarity matrices across the five neighborhoods and an interactive D3.js Force-Directed Network showing which residents share a connected mental map as you raise or lower the similarity threshold.
Barangay Santa Monica (CL-SM, 036 to 040)
High Socio-Spatial Cohesion (J = 0.667 to 1.000)
In Santa Monica (CL-SM, 036 to 040), pairwise Jaccard similarity never drops below 0.667, and maps 037 and 038 achieve a 1.000 match. Long residency tenures and daily foot traffic around vernacular anchors create a tightly synchronized mental map.
Hovered / Selected Cell Inspector
Hover or tap any cell in the matrix to inspect the exact pairwise similarity between two residents.
Why Does This Contrast Matter?
Standard census data only registers displacement after families are evicted. A collapsing Jaccard matrix (such as Pasong Putik Proper's 0.000 scores) acts as an early-warning sensor for in-place symbolic displacement - showing where rapid tower and mall construction has fractured community memory.
What the Force Network Reveals
Each circle is one of the 60 residents. A line connects two residents if their mental maps share a Jaccard similarity at or above the slider threshold.
Active Links
124
Connected Nodes
48 / 60
Mean Jaccard Coefficient Across All 60 Cognitive Maps (R^2 = 0.0924)
Range: 0.139 to 0.344Mental Map Complexity Hierarchy (Tertiles)
Maps were categorized into three structural complexity orders based on total recognized topological features:
1st-Order (43%): Simplified linear axial skeletons along primary roads (2 to 5 features).
2nd-Order (47%): Intermediate arterial + district node networks (6 to 10 features).
3rd-Order (10%): Intricate nested streets, secondary landmarks & boundaries (11 to 16 features).
Corporate Wayfinding Giants vs. Micro-Scale Vernacular Heartbeats
Why do Commonwealth Avenue (71.7%), Fairview Center Mall (61.7%), and SM City Fairview (56.7%) appear on so many maps, yet fail to unite neighbors in Pasong Putik Proper? Filter the chart below to explore how macro-legibility differs from micro-scale community cohesion.
Recurrence Across 60 Mental Maps (% and Count)
Hover bars for spatial roleCorporate Wayfinding Anchors
Mega-malls (SM City Fairview, Fairview Center Mall, Ayala Fairview Terraces, Robinsons Novaliches) and multi-lane highways (Commonwealth Ave, Regalado Ave, Quirino Hwy).
- [+]What they do well: Act as high-visibility transit transfer nodes and air-conditioned meeting waypoints (backed by sentiment analysis of 52,700+ online reviews).
- [-]What they cannot fix: Require financial transactions for entry and foster "Legibility without Cohesion" (Pasong Putik Proper mean J = 0.273, with frequent J = 0.000 pairs).
Vernacular & Local Community Anchors
Neighborhood chapels (Parish of the Good Shepherd, Santa Monica Parish), wet markets (Bayan Market), sari-sari stores, pares & shawarma stalls, La Mesa Ecopark, Tullahan River, and pedestrian alleys (iskinita).
- [+]Everyday Spatial Tactics: Residents mark streets with community murals on Dahlia Ave & Flores de Mayo St, youth graffiti in Atherton alleys, Sarmiento St cockpit arenas, and "Welcome Ramadan" banners near local masjids.
- [+]Impact on Cohesion: Inclusive "third spaces" that require no entry fee - driving Santa Monica's 0.56 to 1.00 Jaccard synchronization.
Early-Warning Cognitive Audits: Auditing Symbolic Displacement Before Eviction Happens
How can Quezon City's LGU and urban planners protect community identity along the MRT-7 corridor? Combine the Displacement Impact Checklist with biennial Gentrification Perception Audits below to see what policy safeguards get triggered within a 500-meter radius of new developments.
500m Development Zone Audit Simulator
Symbolic & Physical Displacement Risk Index
CRITICAL FRAGMENTATION (81 / 100)
Low cognitive cohesion combined with high renter vulnerability and threatened street-level micro-enterprises signals severe in-place symbolic displacement prior to physical eviction.
Triggered LGU & Smart-City Policy Mandates (QC CLUP):