Citytalk and Urban Issues: Apr 30, 2007

Which City Will Host the 2018 Games?

edit: The 2016 Summer Olympics Games

Latin American cities

Which city in Latin America you know the best??
Which city you like the most?
Which will you like to visit?

Here THE cities population , many of them youÂ´ve seen photos before, I hope..

Sao Pablo 16.8 millions
Mexico City 16 millions
Buenos Aires 14.5 millions
Rio de Janeiro 12 millions
Bogota 8 millions
Lima 7.5 millions
Santiago 6 millions
Belo Horizonte 5.8 millions
Caracas, Medellin, Monterrey: 4.5 millions

of course there are many more, this are the biggest one, maybe you know another one?? Salvador, Cordoba, Cuzco, Guadalajara, Panama, Curitiba??>

Barca is not Barcelona. It's a common mistake.

I have noticed how many people use the term 'Barca' when they want to refer to Barcelona. So I wanted to help clarify this common mistake.

I'm sure this used term 'Barca' comes from the diminutive the main football club in the city has: BarÃ§a. I guess the character 'Ã§' is not available in Anglo-Saxon keyboards, so the people tend to change the 'Ã§' for a 'c', changing the pronunciation as well. Because 'Ã§' is pronounced like an 's', and 'c' before an 'a' is pronounced like a 'k'.

So, if you want to refer to the football team shortly, you may preferably write it like this 'Barsa', not 'Barca'. FYI: 'Barca' means 'Boat', thus it looks quite strange to a Spaniard.

Here's what you have to use instead when you want to refer to Barcelona shortly:
Barna. It's commonly used too the acronym BCN.>

AnCiEnt CiTy Of UxMaL - YuCataN, MeXiCo

Uxmal is a large Pre-Columbian ruined city of the Maya civilization in the state of YucatÃ¡n, Mexico. It is 78 km south of MÃ©rida, YucatÃ¡n, or 110 km from that city on Highway 261 towards Campeche, Campeche), 15 km south-southeast of the town of Muna.

Uxmal is pronounced "Oosh-mahl". The place name is Pre-Columbian and it is usually assumed to be an archaic Maya language phrase meaning "Built Three Times", although some scholars of the Maya language dispute this derivation.

Maya chronicles say that Uxmal was founded about 500 by Hun Uitzil Chac Tutul Xiu. For generations Uxmal was ruled over by the Xiu family, was the most powerful site in western Yucatan, and for a while in alliance with Chichen Itza dominated all of the northern Maya area. Sometime after about 1200 no new major construction seems to have been made at Uxmal, possibly related to the fall of Uxmal's ally Chichen Itza and the shift of power in Yucatan to Mayapan. The Xiu moved their capital to ManÃ, and the population of Uxmal declined.

After the Spanish conquest of YucatÃ¡n (in which the Xiu allied themselves with the Spanish), early colonial documents suggest that Uxmal was still an inhabited place of some importance into the 1550s, but no Spanish town was built here and Uxmal was soon after largely abandoned

Chicago, New York, skyscrapers & density

No US cities have been more associated with the growth of skylines as are New York and Chicago. And no global cities have had more to do with the devlopment of the high rise than these two.

Surely there are many reasons as for why this occuried, but I'll throw out the one that I think is most responsible: geography & topography.

Both the lower two thirds of Manhattan and downtown Chicago are relatively flat, ideal for high rise development.

Both were greatly affected by water. In Manhattan's case, it is rather obvious. The island is long and narrow. Land was at a premium and the mile-or-two that Manhattan stretche east and west discouraged sprawl. So the city built up, by necessity.

Chicago's Loop, while not surrounded by anything as wide as the Hudson or East river, still was tightly defined by water. Lake Michigan to the east, the Chicago River to the north and west and rail yards to the south, created almost an island of its own where the CBD had nowhere to go but up.

I believe these geographical conditions gave rise to two great skylines.>

Google Suburbia

Google Earth has really let the cat out of the bag when it comes to showing suburbia at its worst. Here's a collection of Google Earth pics that show suburbia in the USA and Australia. Feel free to post the worst examples of suburbia you can find.

Sydney