Watch North America's Cities Grow Up

"Combining commercial real estate data with Google Earth, [Cube Cities] has been generating videos of North American cities prickling with skyscrapers and industrial development over the past century," writes Sydney Brownstone.

"'Cube Cities is the new kind of 3-D pushpin for the next generation of 3-D maps,' Cube Cities’ website tells us. The company also developed a platform called Verticode that lights up individual windows in a building to show off to clients. 'Cube Cities clients can fly over the city like Superman, and scope out all the new condo’s [sic] for sale in New York, confirm the ocean view of a hotel room before they book, or zero in on exactly the right office space in Hong Kong with a view of the harbor,' according to the site."