If you were to illustrate Maricopa in just four photos, what images would you choose?
The rusty, historic water tower? The giant M sitting at city limits? Headquarters? Or maybe even one of the wild horse sculptures?
That’s not quite the case for X bot New Town Every Hour, which featured four underwhelming photos of Maricopa on its account last night.
The account, as the name suggests, features a randomly chosen city, town, community or building every hour. The software behind the bot pulls random photos from Google Maps or Wikimedia Commons, as well as a few factoids from Wikipedia.
The X bot is operated by Nick Swartz, a geographic information systems developer based in Wyoming, who “creates fun/useful things.” Presumably, that is how the account began.
Sometimes the photos in tweets are picturesque and spot on, such as street scenes in Tombstone or abandoned buildings in Truxton. Others are just odd, such as backyards in El Mirage or the photos of gravel and a tiny night shot in Bagdad.
So, how did Maricopa fare? Well…
Maricopa, Arizona
Pinal County
Population: 50,752
Photos from Wikimedia Commons
Link: https://t.co/0QIrqGgoa0 pic.twitter.com/rPei5khPnb
— New town every hour (@TownsUsa) September 5, 2024
The photos the bot chose include an image of Santa Rosa Wash, a blurry scorpion, a blooming globe mallow plant and a Google map of the city’s location, which is included in each post.
From an artist’s perspective the selection isn’t terrible. They do carry the theme of a slowly vanishing nature that once existed beneath the cookie cutter homes, fast food joints and asphalt.
Maybe there’s something to be said about that. Maybe the bot’s sentient self is a closet tree-hugger. Maybe it’s nostalgic for a past that may never return.
But the photo selections fail to illustrate Maricopa as it stands today and its brief history as a young city that has yet to reach the legal drinking age. If anything, they leave the viewer wanting more.
So, what say you, Maricopans? How would you choose to illustrate and characterize your city in a mere four photos?
This post Maricopa in pictures, according to this X bot account appeared first on InMaricopa.