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io9Compare 1836 and modern-day New York with this interactive map
Travel back in time with this interactive map of New York, which lets you take a spyglass to any part of the city and uncover what that circle of space looked like in 1836. David Rumsey is a map expert and collector, and he calls this wall map, drawn by Joseph Colton, one of his … Continued
By Lauren Davis -
Tech News
The Race to Build the Biggest Ferris Wheel on Earth
For more than 100 years, every Ferris wheel on the planet was roughly the same size and height as the 1893 original. But in 2000, something changed: London debuted the London Eye, an enormous juggernaut of a tourist trap. Its success sparked a global race to build higher and faster wheels in the sky—and it’s … Continued
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io98 Ruined Cities That Remain a Mystery to This Day
The world is full of ruined cities, but some have such mysterious rises and falls that they haunt our imaginations. Even if we know who built them, certain aspects of the city may simply defy comprehension in the modern age. Here are 8 ancient cities that we may never fully understand. Photo via Franck Goddio … Continued
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Tech News
What a Sweltering City Really Looks Like in the Summer
It seems like it’s always hot here in NYC, but it’s not only when the oppressive sun is beating down. No, the buildings like to help spread the love around by hoarding the heat and dishing it out themselves. This is what it looks like. Taken by Nickolay Lamm from StorageFront.com, these thermal images show … Continued
By Eric Limer -
Tech News
This Clever Map Compares Chicago Before and After the Great Fire
When the proverbial cow kicked over the proverbial lantern on a Tuesday night in 1871 Chicago, it set in motion an urban transformation that would see its hodgepodge of wooden buildings replaced with the Windy City we know today. Now, thanks to the data viz wizards at Esri and the patronage of The Smithsonian, you … Continued
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Tech News
8 Unrealized Buildings That Could’ve Transformed American Cities
For every existent building in your city, there are a dozen that never came to be. Some plans were abandoned for good reasons (see: LA’s 5,000-foot skyscraper), others were abandoned because of legal and financial quandaries. Either way, these forgotten drawings show us what we could’ve had. We’re currently in the grips of a collective … Continued
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Tech News
Design a Better Street For Your City With This Free Web App
Have you ever wanted to be an urban planner? How about a landscape architect? Are you an urban planner or a landscape architect or do you just really love cities? If you answered yes to any of these questions—and maybe even if you didn’t—you’ll love Streetmix. Streetmix is a free web app that lets you … Continued
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Tech News
Shooting Challenge: Lens Reflections
Your city has a beautiful skyline, and with a couple of cameras you can capture a truly unique perspective of the office towers and skyscrapers that give it its distinctive silhouette. But why stop there? For this week’s Shooting Challenge we want you to capture an image—anything you can think of—as reflected in your camera’s … Continued
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Tech News
Shanghai’s Insane, 26-Year Transformation Summed Up In Two Photos
What happens when you give Shanghai’s financial district 26 years and a few billion dollars of makeover money? This miraculous transformation, which hit a staggering 2,073-feet-high just this past Saturday when the Shanghai Tower became the world’s second tallest building. This first photo of Pudong, which is just east of the Huangpu river, was taken … Continued
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io9These hermit crabs carry 3D-printed cityscapes on their backs
Hermit crabs travel with their houses on their backs, so why not an entire city? Aki Inomata’s photo series gives hermit crabs 3D-printed shells adorned with architecture from various nations, giving the impression that these crabs are world travelers. Inomata explains that she was inspired to create the series upon overhearing that the former French … Continued
By Lauren Davis -
io9
These Are the Floating Airports of Our Dreams
The Avengers dazzled us with the airborne Helicarrier — but if some visionary designers had had their way, we could have had airplanes landing on structures high in the air. Airports raised above cities, airports floating on the water… the 20th century had many schemes, but no success. Check out some of the wildest concept … Continued
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io9
Behold the city of Los Angeles as it could have been
An upcoming exhibition in Los Angeles focuses on the projects that were designed and proposed but never actually came to pass — including a robust public transit system, greenbelts, a Santa Monica Causeway… and a Tower of Civilization. It’s a fascinating look at paths not taken in urban development. Curators Greg Goldin and Sam Lubell … Continued
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Tech News
Bon Voyage, Big Bertha! Seattle Digs a Cave For the Future
In coffee shops and bookstores across Seattle this summer, advertisements for concerts and gallery shows shared space with a less common urban invitation: to a party for a really big drill. The drill—specially designed to dig a tunnel underneath downtown Seattle, building new car capacity to replace an aging, earthquake-damaged viaduct that has dominated Seattle’s … Continued
Brooke Jarvis -
Tech News
You Can Compare 16 Cities 35 Different Ways With This One Mapping Tool
These days we’ve got plenty of ways to visualize data within our cities, from car crashes to Flickr photos. But there aren’t many tools that let us compare information about multiple cities at once—until now. Meet Urban Observatory, a site that compares data from 16 global metropoli. The Observatory is the work of Richard Saul … Continued
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Tech News
7 Clever GIFs That Could Make New York Slightly More Bearable
Like so many of us, Nathan W. Pyle is relatively new to New York. And like so many of us, he has a few ideas about how to make New York a little more bearable. What sets Pyle apart? His ideas are clever enough to warrant a book deal, while the rest of us are … Continued
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Tech NewsWhoa This Timelapse Of Reflected Cities Is Nuts
Photographer Michael Shainblum shot video footage in a bunch of cities: Chicago, San Francisco, San Diego, Las Vegas and Los Angeles. They’re all famous cities that people photograph and explore every day so he wanted to do something different. And kind of out there. He moves from simple reflections to crazy kaleidoscopic effects to create … Continued
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Tech NewsWatch Cities Rise Decade by Decade in These Amazing 3D Animations
It’s hard to imagine that the vast skylines of our major cities were once empty space and unused tracts of land. But the rapid urban growth over the last century is nothing short of astounding, especially when condensed down to simple two minute animations. The 3D flyover renderings were created by a real-estate company called … Continued
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Tech News
Explore The Digital Life of Real Cities in Chilling, Creepy Detail
There’s a video game called Watch_Dogs which views Chicago as a city where everyone and everything is linked through a central network—like something out of a sci-fi film. But to tie in with the games, the developers have made real versions that pull together mountains of data about Paris, Berlin, and London—and the effect is … Continued
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io9
Gorgeous Old Movie Theaters That Have Fallen Into Ruin
Movie theaters used to be glamorous places, like music halls or opera houses. The spectacle of the movie-going experience extended out into the actual look and feel of the cinema. But many of these ornate old movie theaters have fallen into disrepair, and look like gorgeous disaster areas. The Hulme Hippodrome but known as the … Continued