I just spent the last 7 minutes listening to this brief historical overview of Seoul by The Urbanist, while I bounced around the city on Google Street View, admiring the coverage of their transit network and the density of their low-rise neighborhoods.
I love Street View and I love using it to explore cities.
One of the things I liked about The Urbanist episode – beyond it being a good soundtrack while I explored – is that it talks, albeit briefly, about why Seoul is located where it is today.
I am always curious about this when it comes to cities. I mean, who was it that decided, yup, this is going to be the spot. Because it’s generally a pretty sticky decision once it is made.
You may also find this 2014 NASA photograph of the Korean Peninsula interesting. The nighttime sky renders up a pretty stark contrast between North Korea and South Korea.
According to NASA, per capita power consumption in North Korea and South Korea is 739 kilowatt hours and 10,161 kilowatt hours, respectively. That’s why the satellite photo looks the way it does.
Keeping with yesterday’s theme of urban density, here is a photo by Andy Yeung that I am embedding via his 500px page:
The photo is of Hong Kong and it was taken using a drone. Click here for other photos from his “Urban Jungle” drone series.
If you remember the maps from yesterday, you might remember that Hong Kong had a peak residential density of around 111,100 people per square kilometre (2013).