San Francisco Before and After : 1853 to 2010

After my previous article where I was showing the growth of cities worldwide by superimposing old and new satellite pictures, I though about doing a similar thing with even older maps of cities from the 19th century. And what better city to start with than my own hometown of San Francisco, California? The view above shows a map of SF from 1869 and a satellite picture from 2010.   

Click and drag the green cursor to see the difference between the two maps. 

Satellite Pictures Show Growth of Cities Worldwide

CNN and NASA's Landsat department have released a series of amazing satellite pictures showing the dramatic growth of urban areas around the world in the past 30 years. The two superimposed images above show Las Vegas in 1984 and 2011. Click and drag the green cursor on the image to see the changes before and after. See how what used to be barren desert is now lush suburban lawns. Also note how Lake Mead has dramatically shrunk in the same period of time... Las Vegas grew from 520,000 people in 1986 to 1.9 million in 2011. 

Black Rock City 2015

'Biohazard' city plan

With all the mess surrounding the ticket sales for this year's Burning Man (for those who don't know, demand largely outstripped supply, and the event sold out its 57,000 tickets, leaving tens of thousands of burners without tickets), I started working on ideas about how to enlarge Black Rock City to accommodate more people. The Burning Man Organization (BORG) is trying to get the Bureau of Land Management (BLM, the federal agency that regulates the public land where Burning Man takes place) to allow them to slowly increase the population from its current cap of 55,000 people to 70,000 in 2016. 

Cesar Chavez Boulevard Improvements

For those wondering what that mess is all about on Cesar Chavez Boulevard in San Francisco, here is the lowdown: They are in the process of replacing a giant 8 feet diameter sewer pipe that runs under the whole length of Cesar Chavez Blvd, from Guerrero Street to the 101 freeway, and also under Valencia Street between Chavez and Mission St (where the Burger King is) as well as under several adjacent streets. So what we see right now around Harrison Street is just the beginning! Once they are done with the underground work, Cesar Chavez blvd will be redesigned, with an addition of bike lanes and a median, plus trees on both sides. 

Trulia.com Crime Map

Trulia.com, the real estate web-site, has unveiled a new web site that shows a great interactive crime map for most US cities, including San Francisco. This is not the first online crime map out there, but this one has by far the best interface. It looks really good, is well designed, and it is very fast and responsive. You can zoom in from National level all the way to street level and get all kinds of detailed information about every single crime reported. You can also see trends by hour or day.

[Trulia.com/crime via gizmodo]

SFPark iPhone app shows Real-Time Parking Availability in San Francisco

As you may or may not know, San Francisco's SFPark Project has been installing state-of-the-art park-meters and sensors on the ground that can tell if a car is parked in the spot. This information is transmitted wirelessly to their central server. Now this information is available to everybody on-line on the sfpark.org website, or with the SFPark iPhone app. It displays a map showing each street block color-coded depending on the approximate number of spots available.

Giant 'straddling bus' rides above traffic

The Chinese are building a giant tramway that rides on stilts high enough so that it can ride over cars on busy streets, avoiding traffic jams. Cars will also be able to drive under them so as not to be stuck behind them when they are stopped at a bus stop.