Houston Assembled Digitally

There are not too many people who I have run into that know of Google Earth and aren't amazed by it. One of my professors at Tech was notorious for bringing it up in class, and by that I mean opening the application on the computers and using it to teach. I have to admit that I think it was a great way to incorporate this new technology into the learning experience. Everyone seemed to pay attention during those interludes.

On a recent visit from Lauren's dad I decided to share with him a picture that had caught the attention of some friends and me. It was from a book called The City Assembled. The book cover the history of the urban form with great full page pictures from medieval times to present day. The picture of interest was one of Houston taken over 25 years ago. It shows multiple blocks completely paved over for parking lots. When I showed this to Peter, he came up with the idea to look up the same area 'today' on Google Earth and see what had progressed. A few minutes later we were looking down on Houston with a bird's eye view.
It is cool to see the area filling in, but there is still a tremendous amount of land devoted to parking cars. Matt summed it up best when he said, "That just looks hot."