Thanks to Google and satellites flying miles above us in space, mere humans can actually watch a 4-second time-lapse of the Bay Area's urban development of the past 32 years. My, how we've grown!
Three years ago, Google used something called Google Earth Engine to put together decades-worth of satellite video of the entire planet from 1984 until today. Last week, they updated the whole compilation up through 2016. Needless to say, it is awesome. If you really want to go down the rabbit hole of exploring our whole planet in detail, you can wave goodbye to the rest of your day by checking out Google Timelapse.
According to the geniuses over at Google, their Timelapse, "is made from 33 cloud-free annual mosaics, one for each year from 1984 to 2016, which are made interactively explorable by Carnegie Mellon University CREATE Lab's Time Machine library, a technology for creating and viewing zoomable and pannable timelapses over space and time."
Local loyalists can check out the Bay Area's topographical changes in the past 32 years in the video below. The most noticeable differences are the new (and very recent) East Span of the Bay Bridge, the big upgrade to Doyle Drive which runs through the Presidio, and the development of San Francisco's Shipyard. We looked for any sign of the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, but couldn't spot such a quick slice of local history. What caught your eye as the biggest change in the Bay Area over the past three decades?
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