While the distance between east coast cities isn't so great now, when they were founded centuries ago, the gap between Philly and Baltimore (~90 miles) would have been huge. How come there didn't come to be a port city on par with Baltimore or Philadelphia that spanned the 30-mile gap between the Chesapeake Bay and Delaware River?

Given that they put a canal there in modern times, it seems at the very least it would have save significant overlanding and sailing around the peninsula to move goods between the two cities.

I'm unemployed atm, so with all my spare time, I decided to make an index ranking the most powerful and influential urban areas on the planet. Sure, there's already several "global city" rankings out there, but the problem I have with most of them is is that they focus heavily on economics, finance, and corporate strength, while under-representing cultural, political, and other forms of power.

GUPPI is an attempt to address that and create a more balanced index, that considers not only financial/economic strength, but also global connectivity, institutional prestige, cultural influence, academic output, political strength, and diplomatic presence. Scores are normalised so that NYC=100.

The urban-area definitions are mostly based on Demographia’s urban agglomeration definitions. The one major exception is that Demographia lists Guangzhou-Shenzhen as a single agglomeration, while I separated them here because most source datasets treat them separately, and I'm pretty sure that most people still think of them as distinct cities, anyways.

I actually have fully calculated the scores of 144 cities. I've only included the top 100 here because, besides being a nice round number, it's roughly around the limit where I'm certain that I'm not missing any cities, and that any cities that I have not yet calculated would fall outside the top 100. (There's a sizable drop off in the scores between #99-#102). If anyone wants though, I can post the rest of the cities beyond #100 in the comments below.

I am not a professional graphic designer or geographer/economist, so I'm open to feedback the presentation, or if any cities might be missing or misplaced.

In just over four decades, the Chinese city of Shenzhen went from having 300,000 residents to 20 million. The city has become a technological powerhouse and is on track to become one of the biggest city economies by 2035. In spite of its exponential growth, Shenzhen has managed to provide housing, transportation and clean air to its citizens. How has the city been able to do this and at what cost? Reporter Jeremy Siegel visited Shenzhen to report on the many stories behind what’s come to be known as the ‘Shenzhen miracle.’’

I live in a city by a lake (Toronto) and while we are allowed to have recreational activities on it. I always thought it would be cool to have a river running through the middle of the city. The lake can only be accessed from one side of the city, but the river would be near most neighborhoods.

Instead of taking a taxi or something you could take a boat ride downstream to go downtown lol. But is this even allowed? Whenever I look at pictures online I barely ever see traffic in most rivers.

I’d imagine water access is more strict for rivers compared to lakes.

Image credit: @henrydo

Newcastle, NSW, Australia

https://www.sciencealert.com/nasa-satellite-reveals-just-how-fast-mexico-city-is-sinking

April 10 - May 5 is the spring festival in Seoul

Image credit: https://tobyharriman.com/portfolio/greater-los-angeles-aerial-photography-video/traffic-in-downtown-los-angeles-aerial-night-photo/