Mapping Everyday

"Given a current environment where urban spaces and subjects are increasingly positioned as sites of struggle and conjecture (and almost always without their voices participating), society has a mandate to be seriously concerned with the functioning of ideology articulated by conceived spaces as it relates to identity."  This was the original quote that I did not understand from the passage.  After some discussion in class I came to realize it is talking about how many people will not associate themselves with certain areas just because of things they hear.  This happens a lot in the southeastern part of D.C.  People hear bad things about the area because that is where the media goes when they need a story about crime or murder.  Because of these bad stories coming from this part of D.C., people assume the area is bad and they choose not to go there.  It is quite natural for people to do this.  If you have never been to an area of this country or even of the world, but you hear about bad stuff going on there, you are not going to go there to see if it is true.  You are just going to stay away.  People don't like to associate themselves with troubling or dangerous situations, so they try to avoid them as much as possible.  If the media only portrays bad things about an area, even if there are some good things about it, the average person is just going to assume it is a bad area and nothing good would come of going there.