{"id":633,"date":"2026-01-12T01:24:48","date_gmt":"2026-01-11T16:24:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wikitopia.city\/blog\/?p=633"},"modified":"2026-01-14T05:02:43","modified_gmt":"2026-01-13T20:02:43","slug":"toward-an-archive-of-everyday-urban-observations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wikitopia.city\/blog\/toward-an-archive-of-everyday-urban-observations\/","title":{"rendered":"Toward an Archive of Everyday Urban Observations"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

*This post was originally published at medium.com<\/a> on Jan 2, 2026.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the vast expanse of the Internet, we can find both crowded places always brimming with buzz and energy, and empty places that sit in near-total silence. \u201cd\u00e9d\u00e9d\u00e9<\/a>\u201d exists within the latter \u2014 it is a tiny, unassuming website, like a roadside udon shop tucked away in the mountains or an unmanned station at the end of a train line.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

d\u00e9d\u00e9d\u00e9 is a website for sharing observations about cities. Its purpose is simple: to share what we like about a neighborhood (\u201cGood\u201d), what we don\u2019t like (\u201cBad\u201d), or those vague, indefinable things that just make us wonder (\u201cWhy\u201d). It is a place to deepen our collective interest and understanding regarding the places we live in. (The name d\u00e9d\u00e9d\u00e9 derives from the Kansai dialect words eed\u00e9<\/em>, akand\u00e9<\/em>, and nand\u00e9<\/em>, which translate to good, bad, and why in English.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is not a place for making decisions or reaching conclusions. It is a place to quietly record the \u201cstuff\u201d of the city: the way sunlight reflects off the leaves of a street tree; the roar of construction starting at dawn; a park that is beautifully maintained, yet somehow feels lonely. We believe that the fleeting, modest impressions we form about urban phenomena in our daily lives are worth preserving.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Originally, d\u00e9d\u00e9d\u00e9 was born as a tool to support \u201curban walking\u201d workshops organized by a group of friends in Kyoto. These workshops (called machiaruki<\/em> workshops in Japanese) are participatory events popular across Japan, where people walk through neighborhoods to find interesting or curious things and then present their findings. Generally, these are \u201clow-tech\u201d affairs \u2014 a common format is to have participants draw their findings using markers on a large paper map. However, for our workshops we decided to build a dedicated website, as a simple experiment. While walking, participants could upload photos and brief descriptions of things that caught their eye; these would automatically be plotted onto a map alongside everyone else\u2019s posts, allowing for a bird\u2019s-eye view of the day\u2019s discoveries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lately our members have become busy, and we haven\u2019t been able to hold a workshop for a while. Because of that, we decided to spin off the website as a standalone project and open it to the public; thus d\u00e9d\u00e9d\u00e9 was born. Unlike a face-to-face workshop where motivation is naturally high, the website alone can feel a bit quiet \u2014 there isn\u2019t much incentive to post. We do not think this is a problem, however. Even if there are no frequent posters, if people across the globe contribute something small every once in a while, that will be more than enough to create a beautiful and educational archive that does not exist anywhere else in the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As of now, d\u00e9d\u00e9d\u00e9 has no source of income, and our plans for covering server fees and other operating costs are a total blank slate. However, we hope to keep it running as long as possible, as a modest and somewhat quaint website. If the idea of d\u00e9d\u00e9d\u00e9 resonates with you, please try to find something in your city to post the next time you head out. Chances are, you won\u2019t get a reaction from anyone (we have no \u201cLike\u201d button, and while there is a comment feature, so far it is very rarely used). But in an era of information overload, perhaps that lack of feedback isn\u2019t such a bad thing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

*This post was originally published at medium.com on Jan 2, 2026. In the vast expanse of the Internet, we can find both crowded places always brimming with buzz and energy, and empty places that sit in near-total silence. \u201cd\u00e9d\u00e9d\u00e9\u201d exists within the latter \u2014 it is a tiny, unassuming website, like a roadside udon shop tucked away in the mountains or an unmanned station at the end of a train line. d\u00e9d\u00e9d\u00e9 is a website for sharing observations about cities. Its purpose is simple: to share what we like about a neighborhood (\u201cGood\u201d), what we don\u2019t like (\u201cBad\u201d), or those […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-633","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wikitopia.city\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/633","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wikitopia.city\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wikitopia.city\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wikitopia.city\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wikitopia.city\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=633"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/wikitopia.city\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/633\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":699,"href":"https:\/\/wikitopia.city\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/633\/revisions\/699"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wikitopia.city\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=633"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wikitopia.city\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=633"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wikitopia.city\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=633"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}