Myles Zhang

When it comes to the development of New York City over many, many years, we tend not to see the forest for the trees, so to speak. Here Grows New York, an animated map created by urban development buff Myles Zhang, gives us a seriously forest-eye view of how the city changes from the time the first native American tribes populated the five boroughs in 1609 to the noisy tangle of highways of 2019. Complete with cool facts and a soundtrack, the map visually animates the development of this city’s infrastructure and street grid using geo-referenced road network data, historic maps, and geological surveys, highlighting the kind of organic growth spurts that drive development over time, providing an "abstract representation of urbanism."
Watch the city grow before your eyes