Posts Tagged ‘cities’
How ya gonna keep ’em down on the farm?…
Urban Density “Shadow”
TOKYO: Population 42,607,376 – Area 7,408 km² – Density 5,752 pp/km²
From Cotonou in Benin, with just more than 1.5 million people, to the Tokyo metropolitan region, with more than 42 million inhabitants, a total population of 1.2 billion people– 35 per cent of the world’s urban population in 2010– live in one of 129 ‘extended metropolitan regions’ across the world. LSECities has taken a closer look:
Using Google Earth satellite imagery, we captured a ‘snapshot’ of where people live and estimated ‘net densities’ by systematically tracing the built-up area of each metropolitan region – including central zones, satellite towns and the peripheral areas (a detailed methodology can be found online). The fact that 23 million people in Manila occupy a space one eighth the size of the same number of New Yorkers, or that Atlanta in the USA is 25 times larger than Hong Kong with roughly the same population, says something about the capacity and resilience of urban form as well as physical and geographical constraints…
Explore further at LSECities’ “Measuring the World’s Urban Footprint.”
[TotH to Flowing Data]
###
As we hail a cab, we might recall that it was on this date in 1864 that Union General William T. Sherman ordered residents of Atlanta, Georgia, to evacuate the city. Sherman had taken Atlanta with little effort, and had promptly destroyed rail lines that might connect the city with Southern reinforcements. Preparing to march on, Sherman didn’t want to be responsible for the civilian population of the city, so decided to evict them: from September 11- 16, 446 families, about 1,600 people, left their homes and possessions and were “dropped” by Sherman’s men far south of the city, in the vicinity of the remains of the defeated army of Confederate General John Bell Hood. In November Sherman and his men, having resupplied themselves with the goods that remained in Atlanta set out on their infamous “March to the Sea,” destroying nearly everything that lay in their path.
Sherman’s men destroying rail lines in Atlanta at the time of the evacuation order
ATLANTA TODAY: Population 7,506,267 – Area 6,888 km² – Density 1,090 pp/km²
How ya gonna keep em down on the farm?…
This simple interactive animation by Periscopic, in partnership with UNICEF, illustrates the changes in urban population from 1950 up to present, through projections for 2050. Circle size represents urban population and color is an indicator for the percentage of people living in cities or towns.
[via Flowing Data]
As we contemplate concentration, we might celebrate International Women’s Day.
Poster for Women's Day, March 8, 1914
How ya gonna keep ’em down on the farm?…
A city is the pulsating product of the human hand and mind, reflecting man’s history, his struggle for freedom, creativity, genius-and his selfishness and errors.
– Charles Abrams
Beijing-based photographer Jasper James travelled Asia to create his series “City Silhouettes,” an entrancing examination of urbanization (literally) through the eyes of the individual…
[TotH to Feature Shoot]
As we re-read Jane Jacobs, we might recall that it was on this date in 1899 that the rubber heel was patented by Humphrey O’Sullivan. O’Sullivan, a printer, began by nailing a piece of rubber floor mat to his own shoes; after developing the product and patenting it, he launched a company to market his podiatric progress– in a way aimed at pedestrians pounding the pavement in America’s growing cities.
How ya gonna keep ’em down on the farm?…
As the U.N. affirms, 3.5 billion people on earth– over half the world’s population– live in cities, and urbanization is growing. So it’s not surprising that there are, as io9 reports, some pretty strange pockets among the sprawl around the globe…
There are the novel, for instance…
Thames Town
This quaint English village, housing 10,000 people, is just 20 miles outside the center of Shanghai, and a new rail system puts it just 15 minutes from downtown, as part of a rapidly expanding Greater Shanghai. Thames Town was designed to look exactly like a bucolic English town, complete with red brick buildings, a sandstone church, a village green, a market square, and a pub. But it’s not a theme park – developers insist it’s a real residential community. As the Independent wrote:
Residents can sip their bitter in a traditional English pub, “The Thames Town”, as children scamper across the medieval market square to a bilingual school, while red-brick warehouses form a commercial area on the waterfront. Developers are targeting British companies such as Tesco and Sainsbury to add to the authentic high-street feel so the town’s…10,000 residents can shop in true British style. There are sporting facilities and everything a town of its size should have.
Watch a Youtube video of the place here.
And there are the horrifying…
Centralia, PA
In 1962, sanitation workers in this town began setting fire to some garbage, near a disused mine opening. The fire spread to a rich underground seam of coal, igniting a blaze that has been going for decades and could continue for up to 250 years according to some experts. The fire expanded and mutated like an amoeba. At first it was nice — the town’s residents no longer had to shovel snow off their sidewalks and tomatoes grew in the middle of winter. But then trees started dying and after a child nearly fell down a sinkhole full of carbon monoxide in 1981, the town was evacuated. Now, only a few stubborn residents remain despite efforts to evacuate them. (And rumor has it this town was the inspiration for the video game Silent Hill.)
More? Explore the “10 Weirdest Urban Ecosystems on Earth.”
As we remember that it’s “location, location, location,” we might recall that it was on this date in 1889, at noon, that The Land Run of 1889 began in what we now know as the State of Oklahoma. Within hours, both Oklahoma City and Guthrie were populated, each with over 10,000 residents. As William Willard Howard reported later that year in Harper’s Weekly:
Unlike Rome, the city of Guthrie was built in a day. To be strictly accurate in the matter, it might be said that it was built in an afternoon. At twelve o’clock on Monday, April 22d [sic], the resident population of Guthrie was nothing; before sundown it was at least ten thousand. In that time streets had been laid out, town lots staked off, and steps taken toward the formation of a municipal government.
You must be logged in to post a comment.