View allAll Photos Tagged Sprawling
Osaka, Japan
2016
________________________________________________
Stay up-to date by following me on:
Instagram | Facebook | Twitter
www.peterstewartphotography.com
For image licensing or print enquiries, please contact me at: info@peterstewartphotography.com
Lou Tingle took me to the largest ginkgo tree in Cave Hill Cemetery this past week. It is definitely worth finding this time of year. I added a yellow filter to my pinhole camera to enhance the fall foliage. I was expecting a more dramatic whiteness, like infrared, from the yellow ginkgo leaves. My results were mixed. Maybe a little underexposed. I could have bracketed my exposures but my film was limited that day.
London at night, taken from the roof of a tower currently under construction.
View more rooftop views of London on my website -
Taken at Victoria Park in Hong Kong, which has a stunning viewpoint, though the wait to get up there was excruciatingly long!
A vantage point affords a view of the urban sprawl in the Strijp-S suburb of Eindhoven, Netherlands. Strijp-S used to be the industrial centre of Philips.
This monochrome shot aims at focusing on industrial shapes and patterns alone, so it is stripped of distracting colours.
From there one sees the rear of the Philips Stadion, home of the PSV Eindhoven team (PSV: Philips Sport Vereniging). The football stadium has a 35,000-seat capacity and holds a 4-star rating by UEFA; its last renovation was completed in 2002.
A soaring high-rise dominates the skyline on the left, with glass and steel all around its 21 storeys.
On the right one can see the 70 metre-high tower of St. Catherine’s Cathedral far away. The church was designed in the 1860s by Pierre Cuypers in neo-Gothic style, in juxtaposition with the industrial kind of urban landscape closer.
I love the shape of this tree, standing on the crest of a small ridge, overlooking little Mahurangi harbour, just a few minutes north of Auckland (the lights to the right.) Just a single shot using Sony's 14mm f1.8 GM, and some clumsy light painting with the torch on my iPhone.
In all of the years I have lived here, I still don't think I fully grasp how big and populous this city is.
Taken from Lotte Tower
Seoul, Korea
October 2020
Excerpt from streetsoftoronto.com/city/biidaasige-park-toronto/:
Toronto just opened its biggest new park in a generation—and it’s absolutely stunning
July 22, 2025
Toronto unveiled its largest new park in a generation on Friday and it is a stunner. This expansive park is part of a major flood protection and revitalization effort that is reshaping the city’s eastern waterfront and setting the foundation for future sustainable communities.
Biidaasige Park sits on Ookwemin Minising, a new island formed through the re-routing and naturalization of the Don River. The name Ookwemin Minising means “place of the black cherry trees” in Anishinaabemowin and reflects the landscape’s Indigenous roots. The creation of the island and park was driven by the need for flood protection in the Port Lands, one of the largest urban renewal efforts in North America.
The Port Lands Flood Protection project, which involved rebuilding the mouth of the Don River, was designed not just to safeguard over 174 hectares of land from future flooding, but to create new natural environments and accessible public space. Biidaasige Park is the first completed public amenity on this reimagined terrain.
Biidaasige Park sprawls over 50 acres.
Biidaasige (pronounced bee-daw-sih-geh) means “sunlight shining toward us,” and the park lives up to its name with bright, open spaces, extensive native plantings, and dynamic features for recreation and play. The park space is spread over a whopping 50 acres (20 hectares) today—with another 10 acres (4 hectares) coming in 2026—the park includes:
•An incredible and huge naturally contoured playground with larger-than-life animal sculptures representing Indigenous dodems (clans)
•The city of Toronto’s first-ever ziplines, which are modest but super fun
•The Badlands Scramble, a waterplay and climbing area
•Picnic grounds and two dog off-leash zones
•A pebble beach-style landing area for launching kayaks and canoes
•Fishing platforms and step-downs to the river for nature access
•Trails for walking and cycling
•Wetlands and native vegetation for birdwatching, including the Don Greenway wetland corridor
This first phase alone features over 5,000 trees, 77,000 shrubs, and two million herbaceous plants—all part of a carefully restored riverine ecosystem.
What makes the new park so impressive, beyond the playground and the amazing spaces designed for people to congregate and enjoy the area, is that it sprawls and you can explore much further afield than one might think up a first visit.
The trails actually run on the other side of the new Don River and stretch all the way to the shipping channel south of the park, which provides an incredible experience for visitors. An area rarely seen up close by anyone who lives here.
Any active types, joggers, cyclists, paddle boarders and kayakers will love this new play space, especially when combined with Cherry Beach for an epic loop option.
While Biidaasige Park is the first completed piece of public space on Ookwemin Minising, the broader vision is ambitious. At 98 acres (39 hectares), the island is expected to eventually support more than 15,000 residents, nearly 3,000 jobs, and 15 additional acres of parkland. Mixed-use developments and sustainable housing are already in planning, made possible by the foundational flood protection work.
The naturalization of the Don River and the creation of Biidaasige Park represent a significant environmental milestone. Where once stood a neglected industrial floodplain, there is now a living river valley with new habitat, green infrastructure, and public access to water—all designed to withstand the climate-related challenges of the future.
The next phase of development will see the expansion of the island community and additional parks and public amenities. The Lassonde Art Trail will open in 2026 alongside the park’s final section. And with plans to accelerate housing construction on both Ookwemin Minising and the adjacent Quayside lands, this newly accessible stretch of the Toronto waterfront is poised to become a model of sustainable and inclusive urban growth.
From inside any given town in the Portland are, amidst the urban canyons and industrial sprawls, it's easy to forget what a lush forest paradise this city is tucked into. Near where I live there used to be a point where almost the entire Portland Metro area was visible. Now it's mostly obscured by trees that are growing in the tree farm around it, but years-old photos I have still show the northern edge of the Willamette Valley in all its splendor.
The area that was to become West Palm Beach was settled in the late 1870s and 1880s by a few hundred settlers who called the vicinity "Lake Worth Country." These settlers were a diverse community from different parts of the United States and the world. They included founding families such at the Potters and the Lainharts, who would go on to become leading members of the business community in the fledgling city. The first white settlers in Palm Beach County lived around Lake Worth, then an enclosed freshwater lake, named for Colonel William Jenkins Worth, who had fought in the Second Seminole War in Florida in 1842. Most settlers engaged in the growing of tropical fruits and vegetables for shipment the north via Lake Worth and the Indian River. By 1890, the U.S. Census counted over 200 people settled along Lake Worth in the vicinity of what would become West Palm Beach. The area at this time also boasted a hotel, the "Cocoanut House", a church, and a post office. The city was platted by Henry Flagler as a community to house the servants working in the two grand hotels on the neighboring island of Palm Beach, across Lake Worth in 1893, coinciding with the arrival of the Florida East Coast railroad. Flagler paid two area settlers, Captain Porter and Louie Hillhouse, a combined sum of $45,000 for the original town site, stretching from Clear Lake to Lake Worth.
On November 5, 1894, 78 people met at the "Calaboose" (the first jail and police station located at Clematis St. and Poinsettia, now Dixie Hwy.) and passed the motion to incorporate the Town of West Palm Beach in what was then Dade County (now Miami-Dade County). This made West Palm Beach the first incorporated municipality in Dade County and in South Florida. The town council quickly addressed the building codes and the tents and shanties were replaced by brick, brick veneer, and stone buildings. The city grew steadily during the 1890s and the first two decades of the 20th century, most residents were engaged in the tourist industry and related services or winter vegetable market and tropical fruit trade. In 1909, Palm Beach County was formed by the Florida State Legislature and West Palm Beach became the county seat. In 1916, a new neo-classical courthouse was opened, which has been painstakingly restored back to its original condition, and is now used as the local history museum.
The city grew rapidly in the 1920s as part of the Florida land boom. The population of West Palm Beach quadrupled from 1920 to 1927, and all kinds of businesses and public services grew along with it. Many of the city's landmark structures and preserved neighborhoods were constructed during this period. Originally, Flagler intended for his Florida East Coast Railway to have its terminus in West Palm, but after the area experienced a deep freeze, he chose to extend the railroad to Miami instead.
The land boom was already faltering when city was devastated by the 1928 Okeechobee hurricane. The Depression years of the 1930s were a quiet time for the area, which saw slight population growth and property values lower than during the 1920s. The city only recovered with the onset of World War II, which saw the construction of Palm Beach Air Force Base, which brought thousands of military personnel to the city. The base was vital to the allied war effort, as it provided an excellent training facility and had unparalleled access to North Africa for a North American city. Also during World War II, German U-Boats sank dozens of merchant ships and oil tankers just off the coast of West Palm Beach. Nearby Palm Beach was under black out conditions to minimize night visibility to German U-boats.
The 1950s saw another boom in population, partly due to the return of many soldiers and airmen who had served in the vicinity during the war. Also, the advent of air conditioning encouraged growth, as year-round living in a tropical climate became more acceptable to northerners. West Palm Beach became the one of the nation's fastest growing metropolitan areas during the 1950s; the city's borders spread west of Military Trail and south to Lake Clarke Shores. However, many of the city's residents still lived within a narrow six-block wide strip from the south to north end. The neighborhoods were strictly segregated between White and African-American populations, a legacy that the city still struggles with today. The primary shopping district remained downtown, centered around Clematis Street.
In the 1960s, Palm Beach County's first enclosed shopping mall, the Palm Beach Mall, and an indoor arena were completed. These projects led to a brief revival for the city, but in the 1970s and 1980s crime continued to be a serious issue and suburban sprawl continued to drain resources and business away from the old downtown area. By the early 1990s there were very high vacancy rates downtown, and serious levels of urban blight.
Since the 1990s, developments such as CityPlace and the preservation and renovation of 1920s architecture in the nightlife hub of Clematis Street have seen a downtown resurgence in the entertainment and shopping district. The city has also placed emphasis on neighborhood development and revitalization, in historic districts such as Northwood, Flamingo Park, and El Cid. Some neighborhoods still struggle with blight and crime, as well as lowered property values caused by the Great Recession, which hit the region particularly hard. Since the recovery, multiple new developments have been completed. The Palm Beach Mall, located at the Interstate 95/Palm Beach Lakes Boulevard interchange became abandoned as downtown revitalized - the very mall that initiated the original abandonment of the downtown. The mall was then redeveloped into the Palm Beach Fashion Outlets in February 2014. A station for All Aboard Florida, a high-speed passenger rail service serving Miami, Fort Lauderdale, West Palm Beach, and Orlando, is under construction as of July 2015.
Credit for the data above is given to the following website:
Taken from one of the cable cars which crosses from the North Greenwich peninsula to the north of the Thames. It takes about 10 minutes and is vaguely interesting. There's a bit of reflection from the cable car in part of the clouds if you look very carefully but I don't think it detracts at all from the view and the sprawl of London that's definitely not part of the touristic scene!