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A Decade of London in Google Street View
- hycaria 7y agoAlways more people, always more asphalt, always more buildings. When will this stop.
- tsukurimashou 7y agoWhen people start killing each other in big crowded places? I've been living near or in big cities for many years, communing is impossible, in some cities it is completely full on the road, on public transportation. People become more and more aggressive on the road because they lose their mind spending so much time just sitting there and waiting for other cars to move. I think it is a shame that so few companies do full remote work, especially in IT. It could really change things.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- philbarr 7y agoWhen we decide that we don't want perpetual growth. So - not any time soon.
- pmlnr 7y agoWe'll see about that. There's a growing mass of quiet people who slowly started to keep their things longer, try to repair (either themselves or by someone) them again. There are movements around it - see Repair Café and Restart Party. But indeed, it could do with some push from the loud ones.
- Lio 7y agoWhen worldwide we decide not to have more than 2 children per couple or replace our pets then we'll see the search for growth slow down. Whilst the world population keeps growing and we keep moving forwards towards hire world average incomes we'll still be looking for growth.
- paganel 7y agoWe're doing our part here in Eastern Europe (the fewer children thing, I mean) and everyone speaks about it like the next apocalypse. This is such an article from yesterday's Financial Times [1] [1] https://www.ft.com/content/c5d3e0ae-36eb-11ea-ac3c-f68c10993b04 https://www.ft.com/content/c5d3e0ae-36eb-11ea-ac3c-f68c10993... (in here http://archive.ph/https://www.ft.com/content/c5d3e0ae-36eb-11ea-ac3c-f68c10993b04 http://archive.ph/https://www.ft.com/content/c5d3e0ae-36eb-1... for those who don't have access)
- wackro 7y agoAgent Smith's monologue from The Matrix comes to mind (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hp2adrUaiyI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hp2adrUaiyI) Maybe I'm wrong here, but I'm afraid that shifts towards sustainability in developed parts of the world can only lead to less growth _in those parts of the world_. There will always be a buyer in a less developed country that will keep a less sustainable economy going. And the less-developed world is growing. Efforts towards sustainability are neccessary for reasons too obvious to mention, but ongoing growth does seems inevitable.
- LargoLasskhyfv 7y agoWhy so serious? These visions can be had with more fun! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHMDrhBREXU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHMDrhBREXU
- r_singh 7y agoUnfortunately in developing nations like India, a reverse trend has just begun growing exponentially[1] as the youth becomes victim to consumerism. The older generation would use day to day items (pots, pans, glasses, radios, TV sets, vehicles, even clothes) for what would feel like an eternity, repair till they wanted a well deserved upgrade and even then would either sell or donate the same. Now I hear young people boast about how they upgrade their iPhones every year (or their cars every 3 years) and don't even sell the previous one because there's no point in getting $300 for it :( While not everyone can afford to do that, but it does make it aspirational (in the minds of those vulnerable to herd mentality) to be a wasteful consumer h*e, smh. [1] This mass cultural and spending to saving ratio shift is in the best interest of the government, who wants our economy to grow—at any cost.
- huffmsa 7y agoWell, depending on how badly this Wuhan thing goes, we could have a few years of no growth
- dmos62 7y agoI'm half-heartedly rooting for an early semi-apocalypse. Early, because the later it comes the worse it will be. Might come off as misathropic, but if one thinks that we're doomed by uncontrollable inertia (which I'm not entirely convinced about, but it's a worthwhile scenario to explore), this is the best case scenario. In that vein: hurray for Brexit; Trump 2020; 2008-scale economic bubbles are improbable; go radical fascism; say no to solidarity; we don't have to rethink transportation; late postmodernism is going great!
- Quarrelsome 7y agoBeware the draw of apocalypse fantasy for it speaks of humans own personal struggle to accept the outcome of their own death. It provides the warm thought that life after theirs has less merit and potential which renders their death a blessing as opposed to a curse. It is arguably the reason why the older you get the more it tempts.
- dmos62 7y agoThis idea intrigues me, but I'm not sure I follow all the way. Why is the death of one who has more merit a blessing?
- Quarrelsome 7y agothe idea is that as you get old you start to seek validation that its "okay to die" because you haven't otherwise made peace with that part of your transaction of life. Part of that bleeds out as apocalypse fantasy. Its okay that I'm going to die because this world is no longer worth living in and I sympathise with the poor wretches that have to face the future that I do not. Its a coping mechanism for dealing with death and you'll see many people as they age fall into it.
- wackro 7y agoI'm curious how you came to learn this. Doesn't seem like everyday knowledge.
- ak39 7y agoAlmost all of the buildings in a city like London would be associated with administrative occupations. People pushing paper or buttons. Do we really need to meet at an open plan office to complete our daily tasks? Can we please start getting going the real value "gig" economy in the form of remote work for 90% of these jobs in the cities. Imagine working for a company in London but living outside ring M25! It will take a paradigm shift to make location irrelevant.
- objclxt 7y ago> Always more people, always more asphalt, always more buildings London's population today (8.7 million) is only marginally more than it was in 1939 (8.6 million). For much of the 20th century the population decreased - there's no reason that can't happen again, especially if people migrate out of London for work.
- HatchedLake721 7y agoYou’re forgetting hundreds of thousands of daily commuters
- m-i-l 7y agoI can kind-of see why some people think that more and more people coming to more and more jobs in bigger and bigger buildings is unsettling. But I think it is better than the opposite, which many inside London's prosperity bubble often seem to forget - remember the decay and poverty in some other parts of England, communities hollowed out by declining industry and lack of jobs, near derelict streets of houses up for sale at £1 each to try and attract people back, people turning to crime and drugs and yearning to return to some largely mythical past which the populist leaders have promised them.
- keiferski 7y agoThe first thing you mentioned is the cause of the second.
- Quarrelsome 7y agoit wont and why should it? We might as well mourn the loss of our farming roots whose loss makes Shakespearean dialog impenetrable. Or our loss of maritime roots, I don't know how to load a cannon in a storm or splice a main brace. Is the "progress" that took those elements from me as distrustful of that of concrete and buildings? In terms of London though up is good, its way too much of a sprawl and would benefit from greater density.
- pmlnr 7y agoIn 2012 I used to work around the Liverpool Street Station area. I quite liked it, especially the Lloyds building, but at the time there were already a lot of constructions going on. I haven't been there for years until recently, and the change there is crushing. It became cramped, insanely large buildings everywhere, Lloyds barely visible and tiny with the Cheesegrater next to it. It was an eye opening experience how much can change in a relatively (building age wise) small time. EDIT: 2009 vs 2019 views of the LLoyd's building: https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.5140007,-0.0812995,3a,75y,232.14h,105.93t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sJ9yOo_2_7mT7HBC1ffL94g!2e0!5s20090801T000000!7i13312!8i6656 https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.5140007,-0.0812995,3a,75y,... https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.5139823,-0.0812983,3a,75y,203.63h,105.86t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1shD4TI8ifhgMEz-r27lDKsA!2e0!5s20190501T000000!7i16384!8i8192 https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.5139823,-0.0812983,3a,75y,...
- madaxe_again 7y agoI worked on Gracechurch Street, Bishopsgate, Cannon Street in the early 2000s - all four buildings are gone - 60’s - 80’s structures. Crazy rate of churn.
- mstade 7y agoI worked there around the same time as you and I thought it felt pretty cramped by then already, but nowadays when I end up in that area I almost feel claustrophobic. The city skyline has really changed massively over the past decade..
- deathwarmedover 7y agoReminds me of how I was sad when the bridge for Shoreditch Overground station blocked the Tea Building, but that was before the first Street View image it seems: https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.5231608,-0.0776078,3a,75y,45.53h,99.59t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1s1eWNcBZ_FQ9Jc67jY_yzWQ!2e0!5s20080701T000000!7i13312!8i6656 https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.5231608,-0.0776078,3a,75y,...
- foldr 7y agoI like the new developments, personally. London's skyline has become a lot more interesting.
- jmkd 7y agoTo coincide with the UK launch of Streetview in 2009, I worked at Tate with Google to produce similar 'then and now' images, except featuring paintings from C18th and C19th compared with the SV images of 2008/9. https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2009/mar/20/art-google-street-view-tate https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2009/mar/20/art-goo... These were accessible directly from SV as well as on their own map and microsite. Like many such promotional efforts, once its commercial usefulness was depleted Google silently removed access and they dropped the hosting domain by 2014.
- walterkrankheit 7y agoThat sent me down memory lane. Sort of. Went to check Berlin and the two addresses I've held since moving here 10 years ago and realized the photos haven't been updated since July 2008. :P
- jmkd 7y agoHa, Street View in Germany is an entirely different topic.
- tomclive 7y agoI lived in London in the 90s and early 2000s. I used to love walking whenever I could and walked the commute from Fulham to Westminster. Some of my favourite places are unrecognisable now. I remember Shoreditch being slightly edgy and going to art shows there in pop-up galleries. I spent quite a bit of time in a pub called the Bushranger in Shepherd's Bush. I knew the staff and regulars and could relax there. It was quite dark and had sawdust on the floor. I had heard that it had been turned into a wine bar called the Stinging Nettle and looking at Google Maps now it's a Costa Coffee.
- nnq 7y agoWow, that's amazing, go London! Most other western European cities are quite stagnant in comparison.
- pmlnr 7y agoStagnant? Not at all. Maintaining certain aesthetics? Yes. Most European cities have had looks for centuries, and they intent to keep it that way.
- panoramas4good 7y agoGSV is an amazing resource for tracking street level changes like this. Does anyone know of free resources to view historic satellite imagery of a location? Seems GMaps only shows most recent they've licensed.
- alamortsubite 7y agoLast weekend, I thought I recognized a London exterior in a 10-year-old movie I was watching and added the filming location to IMDb after confirming with Street View. It's been 20 years since I worked there and the shot only lasted a few seconds, so I have no idea how I remembered it. Perhaps from taking the bus up Great Eastern St to City Road? Anyway, the photos on Street View looked pretty similar to the clip in the movie, though I could see other areas I frequented had changed quite a bit. It was fun to cruise around memory lane, and in the end, I spent way more time playing with Street View than I did watching the movie. Street View is an amazing resource. Google, please don't cock it up. :)
- bregma 7y agoAll change is bad. A lack of change is even worse.