Our Neighborhood Epidemic

I was browsing Google Maps/Satellite View today. You know how you do… poking around, just looking at my neighborhood. Something seemed strange. I kept noticing something. In fact, the more I looked the more I saw.

Trampolines. A lot of them.

This piqued my interest. So, I started counting them in my head. It didn’t take long before I realized I needed to take a more scientific approach. There were just too many to keep track of.

Here was my methodology.

Google Maps provides 5 different views of an area. First, the top down normal satellite view. Then, as you zoom in, you can see a 45° angle from north, south, east and west. I looked at each of them and marked any trampolines I saw. Now, sometimes a trampoline at a house is not visible in all 5 views (you can turn the 45° view on/off in the dropdown on the right of the map). I still count those, as the pictures were definitely taken at different times. For example, there are markers in places that are dirt lots in other images.  The top down shot is the newest, where the 45’s are maybe up to a year and a half old judging by the construction going on around us.

On to the shocking results.

I found 121 trampolines! Seriously. In one rather small neighborhood. You can go look for yourself here. Does anyone else find that odd?

When I was growing up, I had 2 friends who had trampolines. I enjoyed them just like every other kid did. It seemed like my friends who had them would only really jump on it when their trampoline-less friends would come over. Even then, sometimes they didn’t want to do it.

I wonder what happens when you, and every one of your friends own a trampoline. Does it cease becoming novel real quick?

I don’t know what it all means. I just found it… strange.

If you have insight and/or theories about this strange phenomenon, please leave a comment. Perhaps we live in the sweet spot between household income, number of kids, and lack of very large trees to obscure the view. I really don’t know.

Side note, a couple other interesting things I saw were a half court “Jordan logo” basketball court, and in one image, what appears to be a miniature Tennessee Volunteers football field. (bonus points will be awarded if you can spot them)

At least I know I won’t need to buy my kids a trampoline (not that I was planning on it) since at least one of their friends is pretty much guaranteed to have one.

 

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