Geography on Set: Connecting Real Places to Parks and Recreation - Future Gryzzl Headquarters

If you're following along with the final season of Parks and Recreation, you know that Pawnee is undergoing some rapid changes. One of those changes is evidenced in the recent "Save JJ's" episode. (See here for a recap). A new company Gryzzl has been a thorn in the side of Leslie Knope, as the company planned to build their new sprawling campus on a rural site owned by the Newport Family. Leslie had also been pursuing this property as the site for a national park. The National Park Service just couldn't match the $125 million put up by the Newport family.

Ben Wyatt and Leslie Knope address media and residents at Gryzzl's future Pawnee headquarters

For as much as Gryzzl has helped communication in Pawnee, the company eroded the community's trust through spying on their customers. Never to be outdone, Leslie and her crew put together quite an economic development package for Gryzzl. They convince the company that relocating their headquarters to a rural area will be much more expensive (upwards of $100 million), than revitalizing a warehouse complex in Pawnee's Beachview Terrace district. The development of Gryzzl's campus in this area will also allow the loved-but-shuttered JJ's Diner to relocate to a more affordable location, and create a customer base for the diner.

Geography on Set; Andy Mineo's "You Can't Stop Me", Washington Heights

I have a fairly decent geographic memory. When many of my older cousins began to drive, I was the young one helping them navigate the east side of metropolitan Detroit. I like connecting real places to my experiences, and connecting real places to scenes we see in the media. This strong sense of place is described as topophilia (a love or affinity for place). (This was one of the first terms I remember learning in planning school from Dr. Rex Lamore at Michigan State University, and it's stuck with me ever sense.)

I plan to make this a bit more of a "series" in connecting the settings of television shows, movies, music videos or other media, to real places. I did this last week for the setting of April and Andy's possible new house on Parks and Recreation, so, I guess this is the second installment of what I will call "Geography on Set". I plan not only to show the actual location of these settings in media, but a bit more about each neighborhood, including demographics and development patterns.