I wonder if that all started because of urban growth boundaries. Hmm.

Incredible. Talk about a ’sea of sameness’.

sources?

sim city, methinks.

The last arial photo looks almost like a rubbish dump.
How I would hate to live there.
Regards.

Horrible!

While it may look like a horrible place to live because of the monotonous grid and seemingly sameness, it seems like the city may be somewhat exciting based on the third picture.

People have painted their houses bright bright colors to stand out and it looks like there are some street markets. The street in the upper left part of the third picture is bright pink, maybe it is a street market or something with a lively atmosphere.

Most of the time, a lot of people in one place will allow for exciting things to happen.

I would like more green space though….. Mexico has a lot of these low rise high density developments.

While you’re on the subject of grid patterns, check out this equilateral triangle grid in New Delhi, India. it is right by the Presidents Estate.

While it isn’t as large as some of your examples, it seems pretty unique.

It is also impressive to compare it with the surrounding area.

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=india&ie=UTF8&ll=28.602458,77.219381&spn=0.029012,0.049825&t=k&z=15

Reminds me of Sim City…

I wonder what that 2Km-wide thing is:

http://maps.google.com/maps?t=k&ie=UTF8&hl=en&ll=19.569819,-99.004669&spn=0.067609,0.079308&z=14

THose blocks are huge, some of the smaller roads look to small for a car to fit through which makes the blocks even longer if you are driving.

I would never want to live there, you would have no sense of place.

wow… sickeningly symmetrical

Dude, have I told you lately that I love you? You find the BEST SHIT ONLINE. Seriously. This is so whacked I can’t stop looking.

Steven: It seems to be a former lake that was drained decades ago. It’s now used for lye production, due to the high concentration of salts.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Texcoco

The Nezo grid makes Chicago look positively chaotic!

I like it. I agree with “torreyahlgren”. From the sky shots it looks awful but those dont give a real sense of scale from the human perspective. I can imagine walking about down there. I just wouldnt want to be walking with bags of shopping from one end to the other though.

Wow! People say that Russian are square-minded people, but this is really square-minded architecture

http://www.juzamdjinn.blogspot.com

Hi! I live in Mexico City and Nezahualcóyotl is a big city inside Mexico City. There live 1,266,000,000 people! Is thru it was part of a lake. But it is not so chaotic and not so claustrophobic, there are parks, markets and many of the modern urban facilities. Of course is not heaven because his main population is of low income and that makes some places of Nezahualcóyotl ideal for crimes at night.

Fascinating. Your website is great.

“There live 1,266,000,000 people!”

Over a billion people… wow

According to Wikipedia, Nezahualcoyotl has a population of just over 1,140,000 people, not the 1 billion figure quoted in a message above. It should seem intuitive that nearly 10% of the Earth’s human population do not live in one small area of Mexico City!

See Wiki at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ciudad_Nezahualc%C3%B3yotl

Sorry, I put 3 zeros that does not go. The real amount is 1,266,000. I take the numbers from de local government http://www.nezahualcoyotl.gob.mx/index.php?id=historia Sorry again.

No way without GPS…

Looks like a micro-chip.

Pos yo vivo en esta ciudad que es bien bonita, lo unico que nos sucede de vez en cuando es que los que vivimos en la manzana nro 1 nos mudamos n*2/3*COS(4) casas mas allá durante N dias, los que estan en la manzana n2,2 se mudan 3,3 manzanas mas arriba los que viven en la manzana n3,4 se convierten en los que vivian en la manzana n-1,n-1.

Uncommon post!

“Where do you live?”
“G-7. Going north on Main Street, turn right at G then go straight down 7 blocks. But you knew that.”

(I suppose you’d have to know north- or south side of the street, but it would mess up the joke. Like I did just now. Someone was going to call me on it.)

aye reminds me of sim city too

How about Athens, Greece? Have a look at this pattern:

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Athens,+Greece&ie=UTF8&ll=38.035146,23.685172&spn=0.012,0.020084&t=k&z=16

umm…. WHICH species is overpopulating again???

THAT place truly is HELL.

You pompous asses should have to live in the sewer of that place. SHAME ON YOU.

Somehow the parks in the centers of the mega-blocks are reminiscent of Savannah, GA. The scale and way they seem to have been mainly built over, however…

Its the people that make a city. Not the shape from the air. Granted, there would be monotony. But the U.S., for instance, has been characterized at large by “The Geography of Nowhere” (by James Howard Kunstler). The culture (read:people’s activities) has become so homogeneous across America, in part as a result of mass production, in part as a result of the automobile, highways, and suburbs. Anyone live in NY? Starbucks on every corner? Do you all think there’s the same store on every corner? The same restaurant on every block?
Mentioning landmarks (tourist attractions) only barely breaks this American monotony. Ask any NYer–you’ll find only the few that work in/around, eg, the Empire State Building ever go there. The rest of us pass the same delis, the same coffee shops, the same fast food, the same junk shops–when we are not deep underground in one of our many identical subway cars.
What if we could no longer maintain this illusion? What if our landmarks could no longer mask *our* monotony? Would we be forced to seek our real variety? Real points of interest? Our own, in our own lives?
Perhaps, then, these streets are as varied as variegated. Perhaps the “external” monotony of the city forces upon the city an “internal” plurality of movement and creativity–a plurality which will be impossible for us (U.S.) as long as we permit, or even wish for, others to think for us, to be creative and initiate change, as long as we continue the think that a few tall buildings, a park or a new mall to shop at provides all the variety and beauty life requires.

Sprawling on the fringes of the city, in geometric order!

I don’t understand why people are saying it’s hard to navigate. New York City, especially Manhattan, is a big grid, and it’s incredibly easy to navigate.