how many words is a picture actually worth?

I filched this image from the Antiplanner blog, which I visit frequently. (The Antiplanner is the nom de guerre of Randall O'toole--I'll talk more about him later).

These are high rise dwellings in Seoul, South Korea. The Antiplanner, who is travelling there on business this week had some neutral remarks about the proliferation of these "Corbu" style developments and their impact on the character of the city. Because I am cautious of photographs or descriptions that can be construed as representative of a place I spent a few minutes on Google looking at the city from outer space (with images that are at least a year old). I have two words to describe my reaction--holy and moly.

Large scale images of the city overwhelmed my senses--the scale was so incredible that a village of high rises like this one get swallowed up in the vista of one of the largest human settlements on the planet. After "flying" around a bit I did notice some patterns. High rises like these form significant clusters, but they don't seem to dominate the land area, which consists of what appear to be older, low rise buildings packed together. There was a distinct lack of centrality to Seoul, which is common to a lot of large cities. There was the hint of a rapidly eroding boundary between western Seoul and the port city of Incheon.

A city that has over two thousand years of architecture and inhabitation would be an interesting place to visit, but I'm not sure I have the courage. I have a profound respect for anyone who works in the administration and governing offices of such a large place. I have nothing but contempt for anyone who would have the arrogance to proclaim that such a place can be "planned" or "improved." I won't give credit to anyone, least of all Corbusier, for the existence of high rise developments--they are an organic response to housing needs in places like this. Vast human networks have an organizational system that we can occasionally describe in isolation or with abstract formulas, but will always remain beyond the grasp of a brain that evolved predominantly under conditions where the largest group of fellow humans ranged from twenty to three hundred.

I also used Google to visit North Korea. That was a bit unsettling--in the map mode the entire country is just one big patch of white. The sky view is only slightly more informative. I wonder how long that is going to last.