Mapping Shanghai with Sim City 2000

[click the image to see at full size]

Well, it's not really Sim City 2000 - but the map's axonometric vantage point and beautiful pixel art graphics are certainly reminiscent of the game I spent far too much time playing as a kid.

Our good friends at Worrell, Inc linked to this interactive map of Shanghai via their new office there. Here's what Pete had to say:

Someone told me there are 4,000 buildings over 25 stories tall here with 1,000 more scheduled to be built in the next few years. To put that in perspective, New York has 2,000.

4,000 buildings over 25 stories tall... here's what that actually looks like: [See Update below.]


[image by pmorgan]

The map takes on a whole new life once you realize that buildings are really quite accurately modeled. For example, here's a stunning shot of the landmark Oriental Pearl Tower in the Pudong district of Shanghai:


[image by Franck]

And it's pixel art representation in the map:



Pretty cool!

Finally, it was a real treat to find examples of the traditional Shikumen style of building I've previously covered at BLYGAD. You can really get a sense for how out of scale they are with the rest of the city when seen in context like this. Like a cartological Where's Waldo, can you find Shanghai's Shikumen?

Links
Edushi Map of Shanghai
Friday Photography | Shanghai's Shikumen

Updates
It turns out Pete might have gotten some bad info. Emporis tells us that New York City has 5592 buildings over 12 stories while Shanghai has only 946. Thanks Bronson!

Video from inside Kowloon Walled City

A quick post today following up on my previous effort to make sense of Kowloon Walled City. The first video surfaced on YouTube about 6 months ago. It was apparently filmed in 1990, what would have been 2 years before the city's demolition. This is truly amazing footage, I don't think anything else like it exists. You'll find a quick guide below the video.



0.00 - 0.50 | Kowloon Walled City at a block or two away
0.50 - 6.04 | Street life on the shell of the city
6.04 - 7:49 | Cutting a straight path beneath the city
7.49 - 9.04 | Re-emergence and more from the street

The next clip comes, surprisingly enough, from the Jean-Claude Van Damme fighter flick Bloodsport (1988). It's a 2 minute 20 second clip, of which the last 1 minute 40 seconds are are shot on location within the Walled City. It's kind of an airbrushed version of the clip above.



If anybody has any other resources on Kowloon Walled City that I haven't previously covered on BLYGAD before, do share!

Related

Friday Photography | Kowloon Walled City

Updates
Kowloon City is featured in Ron Fricke's Baraka (1992), see stills here. Thanks Fred!