QUOTE
An aspected magician is focused in his power, able to perform
fine in some categories of magic, yet much worse in everything
else.
QUOTE
Geas (plural geasa) means “bond” in old Gaelic. In
Shadowrun, a geas is a restriction an Awakened character
voluntarily imposes on his own magical power. Perhaps he
could never fully embrace the radical world paradigm of the
Awakened, and the geas is a symbolic gesture to establish one
last tie to reality. Or perhaps he may have suffered a traumatic
loss of power, and he made up the geas to reassure himself
that he’s still got the touch. Regardless of the reason, if an
Awakened character cannot fulfill the terms of the geas, then
he finds it harder to manipulate magic, effectively becoming
less powerful.
QUOTE
If a character suffers a crisis of
confidence while a geas is broken, Magic losses from geasa
become permanent (see Acquiring Geasa in Play, p. 29).
While I can certainly see the aspected as being a 'physical' limitation and the geas as being a 'mental' limitation, I think there is also room for interpretation as it being otherwise. An aspected mage could just have a mental block towards summoning spirits or whatever. And a geas might be 'mental' but that doesn't make the loss any less real, especially since it can become permanent and thus never mentally overcome, becoming 'physical' really.
I also figure that a city mage would be more likely to have a mental based dependence than a physical one. I don't think you'll have enough of a difference in magic between Chicago and LA to have it actually affect casting a spell, or even enough of a difference between a city and wilderness (Not counting pristine wilderness). Instead I can certainly see someone who is uncomfortable when not surrounded by concrete and tall buildings, and that discomfort translating itself into a difficulty focusing on magic.
Just seems odd to think the magic around a particular city would be so different from that around another city that a mage from one city would have such extreme difficulty in another city. And the applicability of a 'Seattle Aspect' as a proper flaw depends somewhat on the campaign. If there are no plans to ever leave Seattle, it isn't much of a flaw. If it is a gloabtrotting game, then it could be a serious drawback worth more than just 10 BP