Shinjuku Tokyo skyline timelapse: 35 years in 10 seconds

Posted by Cory Doctorow, September 8, 2007 4:53 PM | permalink

This time-lapse video depicts 35 years' worth of construction in Tokyo's fashionable (and vertical!) ~~Shibuya~~ Shinjuku district in ten seconds. Link (via Digg)

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Discussion

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#1 posted by risu81 , September 8, 2007 5:14 PM

This is actually a time-lapse video of construction in the Shinjuku district.

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#2 posted by Tom Gally

, September 8, 2007 6:14 PM

The pictures--not of Shibuya but of Shinjuku, as noted by RISU81--are almost certainly the same as those published in a book in Japan in March 2006. Edited by Nakanishi Motoo, the book's title is "Myakudou suru choukousou toshi, gekihen kiroku 35 nen -- Nishi Shinjuku teiten satsuei" -- translated literally, "The pulsating ultra-high-rise city, a 35-year record of upheaval -- fixed-point photographs of Nishi Shinjuku." The photographs printed in the book are much sharper and more interesting than the grainy YouTube video. A Web site, in Japanese, associated with the project is at http://www.paos.net/nishishinjuku/.

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#3 posted by Cory Doctorow , September 8, 2007 6:54 PM

D'oh! Thanks!

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#4 posted by MadMolecule , September 8, 2007 9:06 PM

I don't mean to be a nitpicker (well, OK, yeah, I guess I do) but the story's headline says "Shinkuju"; it's actually "Shinjuku."

Shinjuku Station is the busiest train station in the world; twenty years ago, I used to pass through it twice a day, to and from school.

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#5 posted by stozone , September 9, 2007 2:34 AM

And it's not fashionable... there's nothing there! Just hotels and office buildings (mainly) so it's a virtual desert on the weekends... unlike Shibuya...

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#6 posted by Anonymous , September 9, 2007 10:21 AM

Certainly some rapid growth, but not as rapid as I had assumed before watching the video. As one of the posters on youtube commented, '35 years in Shinjuku is like 10 in Shanghai'. Doing a project like this in any fast-growing city today, I wonder how difficult it would be to find a vantage point which would remain standing an unobstructed for 35 years.

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#7 posted by Anonymous , September 9, 2007 12:33 PM

a href=”http://sitename.com” target="_blank"

Please, for the love of god, make it so when you link to something, it opens in a new window. I can't count the number of times I've accidentally closed out of BoingBoing and had to scroll through dozens of posts to get back to where I was.

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#8 posted by Hokkaido Hillbilly

, September 9, 2007 3:47 PM

Ahhh, Shinjuku...how I love you and your authentic Irish pubs, Tokyu Hands & entire floor of English books at Kinokunia...

As compared to BFE Hokkaido where I currently reside, which is about as exciting as watching paint dry...

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#9 posted by B. Wood , September 9, 2007 9:57 PM

Shinjuku is a fast place! Just love it! I am amazed that I could "just happen to meet" the one or two people I know in this city of 28 million on a few memorable occasions...

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#10 posted by juhuacha

, September 10, 2007 8:19 PM

hmm... Shinjuku in 35 years, Shanghai in 10, Beijing in 5 (if that!)

I'm amused at how the soundtrack manages to make the thing sound sexual and vaguely vulgar.