The residents would need rattlesnake proof fences and dust screens on the windows to filter out sand.
A couple hundred miles to the northeast is Paige, Arizona. Right on the edge of Lake Powell.
The Desert Suburbs of Las Vegas
Cities
‘Comfort Town’
The stunning ‘Comfort town’ in the Ukrainian capital of Kiev looks like a real-life LEGO city.
Ever dreamt of visiting a real-life LEGO land? Well, coming close enough is ‘ The Comfort Town’ in the Ukrainian capital of Kiev which features low-rise apartment blocks, each painted a different pastel color. Yes, that’s right!
Creating a myriad of blues, greens, yellows, reds, and salmon pinks in the region of dull grey Soviet buildings, the Town is designed by Dmytro Vasyliev, Aleksandr Popov, Olga Alfiorova from the Eastern European firm Archimatika. They were apparently given a free hand to transform the area into an idyllic place to live, and have they done a fab job or what!
A city within a city, the town houses cafes, shops, and offices on the lower floors of each apartment. It also features a 14,763-square-foot retail section with a fitness club and a 3.7-acre outdoor sports facility. The cluster of 180 buildings further features space for leisure activities – such as five-a-side football and long streets, stretching from one side of the Town to the other.
The project operates on the idea of a city-within-a-city, housing everything from shops and restaurants to schools and gyms. As the property sales brochure says, ‘Your little slice of Europe in Kyiv’, its 8,500 apartments and landscaped courtyards have been designed to be culturally closer to Europe than to Ukraine’s Soviet heritage.
Las Vegas in the early days
The Mighty Vegas Strip today.
The Beginnings…
Las Vegas started as a stopover on the pioneer trails to the west, and became a popular railroad town in the early 20th century. It was a staging point for mines in the surrounding area, especially those around the town of Bullfrog, that shipped goods to the rest of the country.
With the proliferation of the railroads, Las Vegas became less important, but the completion of the nearby Hoover Dam in 1935 resulted in growth in the number of residents and increased tourism.The dam, located 30 mi (48 km) southeast of the city, formed Lake Mead, the largest man-made lake and reservoir in the United States.
The legalization of gambling in 1931 led to the advent of the casino hotels for which Las Vegas is famous. Major development occurred in the 1940s, “due almost entirely” to the influx of scientists and staff from the Manhattan Project, an atomic bomb research project of World War II.
American organized crime figures such as Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel and Meyer Lansky managed or funded most of the original large casinos. The rapid growth of Las Vegas is credited with dooming the gambling industry development of Galveston, Texas; Hot Springs, Arkansas; and other major gambling centers in the 1950s.
Autumn in Winnipeg
Unseasonably warm weather in Winnipeg this week. 75 fahrenheit 24-27 celsius.
Somebody lost a shoe.
The Stump
Tokyo’s Shibuya Crossing
The Shibuya crossing in Tokyo is said to be the busiest intersection in the world. At peak times, as many as 2,500 people cross the streets with a single change of a traffic signal, and over 2 million in a single day.
There’s cities, there’s metropolises, and then there’s Tokyo.
Population (2021)
• Total 13,960,236
• Rank 1st in Japan
• Density 6,363/km2 (16,480/sq mi)
• Metro 37,468,000 (2018, Greater Tokyo Area) 1st in the world
The MarkoZen Blog 