The world from above

No, this is not about astronomy or religion. This is still about physical framework planning, which we talked about last Thursday. We said it would be a different perspective once you start looking at the future in terms of decades instead of merely years. That perspective would even become more different, but actually more real if we look at cities and countries from above. And in this day and age of google earth, googlemaps and what have you, seeing the world from above is as easy as a click of the mouse.

Technological development has a quadratic or even parabolic timeline, as we often describe it in mathematics. Which means that the rate of developing new and better things gets faster and faster. It took centuries and decades for the world to have the computer and smartphones as we know them, but nowadays, new capabilities, capacities, and features come out in weeks. In terms of mapping, you can already google and place anywhere in the world and get enough details to identify roads and buildings. Sometimes, it's scary!

The novelty of seeing the earth from above came only after aviation and aerospace came into the picture and later when satellites were launched. Before that, man has to contend with geographical measurements from the ground to develop maps, which were often grossly inaccurate. But these rough grotesque maps guided colonizers around the world to conquer new lands, the Philippines included. At the city level, geodetic surveys were used to measure distances and land areas and formulate economic and physical development plans.

The advent of aerial photography, satellite science, and remote sensing, added the "third" dimension to planning analyses, instead of the traditional two-dimensional flat maps that is more commonly used. And this is more pronounced in physical planning. When we start adding the "time" dimension, then we have a more comprehensive model to better analyse how our cities grow and enlarge. We often see cities as finite areas in space. But if see them develop over centuries, they look more like living organisms that grow bigger and bigger.

If you are familiar with Google Earth and googlemaps (and if you aren't, I strongly urge you to be), then you'll agree that city limits and city boundaries (smaller towns, too) are quite distinct and not hazy, when seen from above, either from aerial photographs or satellite images. This phenomenon can be used to improve the planning of urban settlements over the long term, which is what physical framework planning does. Land use planners specifically refer to these as the built up areas, mostly where residential, commercial, and other land uses are, but which also includes all other infrastructure, especially transportation. The transport corridors and nodes and the land use pattern form the framework upon which the city is built, and its people and economy thrives.

If you take snapshots of the city or portions of it from above, say, every month, you may not notice any differences. But if you take regular snapshots yearly or every 5 or 10 years or so, we can already see how the city grows and expands. The only limiting factor to this exercise is that there were no aircraft or satellites more than a century ago, and even in the early days, there was no technology on taking pictures, much more, storing them over the ages. And even in this day and age, what we can acquire are those that nations which own satellites may want to release. That's why I consider Google Earth as one of the best, if not the best technological gift everybody could have, if you only take time to learn it.

While Google Earth show just a "snapshot," it actually has a series of images from over a decade ago, depends on where the locality is, and whether it was covered by a satellite in the past. In the case of the airport in Mactan, for example, the latest image was taken Dec. 20, 2013, but you can actually scroll back to an image dated Feb. 23, 2005. And you can pan southwest on the image and see how SRP looks like in 2005. You can even zoom to your house and see how it looks from above 9 years ago! Amazing isn't it?

But the real value of the technology is how we can project urban growth, translated to city limits and boundaries in future years. Assemble a series of snapshots every 5 years in the last 30 years and you will see the expansion of cities. Project these forward and we can see how it will be 30 years from now. Now take note that long term infrastructure like highways, airports, and ports will exist for 30 to 50 or even 100 years and you will realize how important to consider their strategic location within the physical framework plan. (to be continued)