Growing cities

Must be time to combine a WebUrbanist post and 'Now & Then' images. I had seen some of these photos before, but hadn't recorded it, now here are just some of the more dramatic examples from "Then & Now: the stunning speed of urban development"
We complain about the pace of change, as old buildings are ripped down to be replaced by often uglier, utilitarian replacements. That pales against the mammoth pace of change in some overseas cities.

The well-known gambling mecca of Las Vegas was carved out of the Nevada desert, when hotels and casinos began construction in the 1930s.

The top black & white photo with the early hotels the Dunes and the Flamingo, is from 1954, and the colour image is from 2009.

China is in a building boom at present, and this is evident from these two photographs of Shanghai. The daylight image was taken in 1990, and the night-time image just 20 years later in 2010.

 Dubai may be where all the oil money is, and it shows in the architecture. 
You can recognise the 3-part apartment building in both photos, but everything else appears to have changed from 1990 to 2003. And it will have changed again in the past 10 years.

You knew Tokyo would make the list - on the left is the Japanese city in the 1960s and again on the right in 2010.

Finally - Panama City is one of the fastest growing urban areas in the world, and these two photographs illustrate the sharp contrast between the two eras. The black & white town sprouts into a maze of skyscrapers between 1930 and 2009.

 Check out other famous cities London, Paris... on the WebUrbanist post.