I fly in planes. Alot. And although I frequently feel like I am in the air more than on the ground, I still can’t help but love the takeoffs and landings. Why? I love examining city layouts from above. Some cities, such as Phoenix, are one epic grid, while other places, like Austin, have no rhyme or reason to, well, anything.

On a related topic, there’s another something that never ceases to amaze me: the amount of uninhabited land.  How/why is it that in some parts of the country we are literally living on top of one another, when just a few hundred miles away is completely baren?

Here’s a picture from our descent into Chicago. From this picture, you wouldn’t know that a massive city is just a few minutes away: