New York
The development of New York city in four easy pictures, for your viewing pleasure. Notice the significant jump in the height of the buildings by 1932? Most of this had only occurred within the couple of years before the second photo was taken: 1930-31 saw construction of five New York skyscrapers that are still among the top ten tallest today, among them the monumental Empire State Building.
San Francisco
In 1906, San Francisco experienced one of the most devastating earthquakes in history. Reportedly measuring around 8 on the Richter scale, the shaking was felt from Oregon to Los Angeles along the coast, and as far inland as Nevada. The earthquake caused fires that destroyed almost the entire city of San Francisco, resulting in an estimated death toll of over 3,000.
The photo was taken just over a month after the event, making the San Francisco earthquake one of the first natural disasters to be recorded on film. By 2006, the city has managed to rebuild itself quite nicely, and even added a couple of bridges.
Dubai
Opinions seem to differ on the date of the first picture – it could have been taken in the 80s – but either way it’s clear that it’s a picture of very little. Now just add a little oil, sprinkle with some laissez-faire building regulations, fast-forward only halfway through one of the biggest construction booms of the modern world, and the result by 2003 is a significant facelift for Dubai’s Sheikh Zayed Road. No longer such a lonely place!
But Dubai didn’t stop in 2003. In 2010 it topped the Ultrapolis charts for having the tallest tall buildings in the world. That’s helped to no small degree by the undisputed world champion tall building, the Burj Khalifa. If you want a raw vision of the future, take a look at it here – those dwarves next to it are also skyscrapers!
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