Looking down from the roof

Source A: an original contemporary non-fiction-style account.

The guide opened a heavy door and the city appeared below us in pieces. From the roof, familiar roads narrowed into lines and buses became bright moving counters. I could trace my usual walk from the station, a journey that on the ground consisted mainly of crossings, queues and the backs of other people's coats. Up here it looked almost elegant.

The distance removed more than inconvenience. I could no longer see who was waiting at a crossing or whether the person beside the bus stop was tired. Traffic arranged itself into patterns without telling me what those patterns cost anyone. The city offered a polished diagram of itself, all connection and movement. A siren rose briefly, thin as a thread, then disappeared between the buildings. Somewhere inside the diagram, a particular day was going badly.

I enjoyed the view and distrusted its tidiness. The roof made the city easier to understand in one sense and easier to misunderstand in another. When we returned to the street, a delivery rider asked me to move out of the doorway. I stepped aside. The map had become a place again, complete with somebody else's need to get past.

Refer to the whole of Source A. Analyse how the writer uses language to convey the writer’s mixed response to the rooftop view. Explain the effects of specific words, phrases and language choices, using evidence from the passage.