As a geographer I cringed. The article was written in a way that made it sound a bit more important than it actually is, and I think that quote was one of it. A designer finding geography and cartography for the first time. It IS good stuff though. Maybe the writing is stylised and maybe not as humble as usual techy writing?
People do think about space and the environment in spatial terms and also in time. This article is basically replaying the same failure that Google is showing - that maps only have an economic value. "Pizza in San Francisco" has been a meme in geospatial hacker land for over a decade and this is another incarnation of it. People think about space in non economic terms more than in terms of how to sell stuff via advertisements. We think about safety, attractiveness, how accessible it is, whats the parking like, who we are with, where next we are going to, what is the ambiance like, how will it be when we try to get home, crime levels, any nearby arts and events on, is the football on at the stadium, is it a weekday or a weeknight, is it near a university, is it during term time, what kind of people are nearby, are the streets well lit, how noisy are the streets. etc. etc.
Now - this doesn't discount the work. I think that a 2D map - the paper analogy onto digital form also isn't good, so any research and attempt to think about what's good and working is worth looking at. Care should be taken when giving psychological or psychogeographical points to such different designs.