For example, the complexities of a city can be shrunk down to a single dot on a map to plan air traffic routes or global trade flows.
Geographers continue to explore the relation between scale of representation and the issues studied.
No magic formula has emerged, but the tension between different scales of analysis adds richness. As the information economy has emerged, the technology of geographic representation has become a major component in geographical practice. At the base of these technical systems, the core questions still revolve around choices of representation. These are all concerns of epistemology . The facets of representation collectively point to the complex doubleness of this concept, for each, in its turn, determines how an object, event, natural or social process, or economic activity is defined, quantified, interpreted, and portrayed.