4 ms·

Mind-Blowing Satellite Pictures Show How Cities Grow Over Time

5 points by gatsby 16y ago

bane 16y ago
As an American, I've never really appreciated this. Frequent trips to D.C., Baltimore, Philly, NYC all my life...the cities are all too new to really see such dramatic growth from the ground without really taking some time to see it. Oh a suburb here and there, a new road, a new high ramp, a new shopping center etc. I think that D.C. in some ways is fairly easy to actually drive through the history of the city and its growth. Starting in D.C. going South or West you find yourself in various "old towns" like old town Alexandria that even today have a distinctly old timy feel. A mess of roads, narrow streets, etc. right after that you quickly see urban areas like Arlington give way to what used to be the far off suburbs of D.C. in Alexandria or Fairfax or Vienna or Falls Church. Today they are an almost unbroken semi-suburb of shopping centers and communities of small old houses built in the 60s and 70s. Get out past that area and you find the 80s. Lots of shopping malls, larger newer homes, etc. The area is noticeably nicer, better planned, less crowded, newer stuff. Out past that you find the 90s and so on and so forth. And at some point it sort of reverses itself as you near the next old town area, you start going back again through time. The bigger the original town was, the more noticeable it is (you see this effect more as you approach Leesburg or Manassas than Haymarket.) I actually found this effect even more interesting and pronounced in Europe, with so many cities founded by Romans, surrounded by a medieval era unplanned rats maze of narrow roads punctuated with a few Renaissance buildings (and a few later eras depending) surrounded by beautifully organized and architected 19th and early 20th century buildings and then a rats maze of ugly modern apartment blocks bleeding off into modern suburbia. http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=paris,+france&aq=&sll=38.861098,-77.240753&sspn=0.577443,1.308746&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Paris,+%C3%8Ele-de-France,+France&ll=48.8576,2.351074&spn=0.060988,0.163593&t=h&z=13 http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&#38... http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Barcelona,+Spain&aq=0&sll=48.8576,2.351074&sspn=0.060988,0.163593&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Barcelona,+Province+of+Barcelona,+Catalonia,+Spain&ll=41.385954,2.168255&spn=0.069548,0.163593&t=h&z=13 http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&#38... You can actually see the history from space, the road organization and building layout are tell-tale. Like rings of a tree you can spot population explosions, times of hardship, uncontrolled fast growth. It's actually quite beautiful to ponder on. This concept, travel towards or away from the founding core of a city in order to "time travel" is also echo'd by modern archeologists, dig down to go back in time. The Seattle underground and the Roman ruins under Barcelona are fantastic examples of this. It reminds me in analogy of climate as a function of altitude (mountain and hills) or latitude (north and south). You can experience the climate of a northern latitude while at the equator by simply climbing up.

5 points by gatsby 16y ago

bane 16y ago

As an American, I've never really appreciated this. Frequent trips to D.C., Baltimore, Philly, NYC all my life...the cities are all too new to really see such dramatic growth from the ground without really taking some time to see it. Oh a suburb here and there, a new road, a new high ramp, a new shopping center etc. I think that D.C. in some ways is fairly easy to actually drive through the history of the city and its growth. Starting in D.C. going South or West you find yourself in various "old towns" like old town Alexandria that even today have a distinctly old timy feel. A mess of roads, narrow streets, etc. right after that you quickly see urban areas like Arlington give way to what used to be the far off suburbs of D.C. in Alexandria or Fairfax or Vienna or Falls Church. Today they are an almost unbroken semi-suburb of shopping centers and communities of small old houses built in the 60s and 70s. Get out past that area and you find the 80s. Lots of shopping malls, larger newer homes, etc. The area is noticeably nicer, better planned, less crowded, newer stuff. Out past that you find the 90s and so on and so forth. And at some point it sort of reverses itself as you near the next old town area, you start going back again through time. The bigger the original town was, the more noticeable it is (you see this effect more as you approach Leesburg or Manassas than Haymarket.) I actually found this effect even more interesting and pronounced in Europe, with so many cities founded by Romans, surrounded by a medieval era unplanned rats maze of narrow roads punctuated with a few Renaissance buildings (and a few later eras depending) surrounded by beautifully organized and architected 19th and early 20th century buildings and then a rats maze of ugly modern apartment blocks bleeding off into modern suburbia. http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=paris,+france&aq=&sll=38.861098,-77.240753&sspn=0.577443,1.308746&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Paris,+%C3%8Ele-de-France,+France&ll=48.8576,2.351074&spn=0.060988,0.163593&t=h&z=13 http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&#38... http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Barcelona,+Spain&aq=0&sll=48.8576,2.351074&sspn=0.060988,0.163593&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Barcelona,+Province+of+Barcelona,+Catalonia,+Spain&ll=41.385954,2.168255&spn=0.069548,0.163593&t=h&z=13 http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&#38... You can actually see the history from space, the road organization and building layout are tell-tale. Like rings of a tree you can spot population explosions, times of hardship, uncontrolled fast growth. It's actually quite beautiful to ponder on. This concept, travel towards or away from the founding core of a city in order to "time travel" is also echo'd by modern archeologists, dig down to go back in time. The Seattle underground and the Roman ruins under Barcelona are fantastic examples of this. It reminds me in analogy of climate as a function of altitude (mountain and hills) or latitude (north and south). You can experience the climate of a northern latitude while at the equator by simply climbing up.