A vocabulary of landscape — a landscape of words
1068 entries
desire line
An unofficial path worn into being by repeated foot traffic, cutting across planned routes. Found in every city on earth. A geographic graffiti pointing out the failure to predict human need. In Japan: kemonomichi. In France: chemin de l’âne. In Holland: olifantenpad, elephant path.
Etymology
Coined in the mid-20th century, often credited to Gaston Bachelard’s The Poetics of Space. Desire (from Latin desiderare) + line — the path that desire, not planning, draws across the ground. Also called a desire path or cow path.