Last year, two Austrian tourists managed to enter North Korea by train at a border crossing that has been closed to foreigners since 1994. Lucky for us, they took lots of pictures. Below are a few samples from their extensive documentation of their trip (see the full visual and narrative account here, here and here). They also hit Pyongyang–a city 3 million people that does see a bit of tourist traffic–and took some special photographic interest to the city’s infrastructure, especially trams.
Considering that North Korea is nightmarish dictatorship governed by a lunatic there probably aren’t any lessons to be to taken from it, but: Pyongyang–at least based on the shot below with lots of intact farmland close to the city center–does look remarkably sprawl-free.
The photo at top was taken in the area of the DMZ. The last two shots–at the bottom of the gallery, after the jump–are from the forbidden Tumangan border crossing.
More forbidden-ness below.
Pyongyang. Look, ma! No sprawl!
Pyongyang trams
Tram tracks, under construction
Pyongyang avenue
North Korean transit-themed stamps
A North Korean designed “railbus”
Tumangan border crossing
Tumangan border crossing.
Photos via vienna-pyongyang.blogspot.com
(H/t: Freakonomics)
April 8th, 2009 at 1:40 am
The second stamp seems to be a Dutch train. I wonder why.
(http://www.nicospilt.com/Treinstellen_DDIRM.htm)
April 22nd, 2009 at 1:27 pm
[...] Gallery: North Korea’s Secret Infrastructure: [...]
December 13th, 2009 at 7:57 am
Love these photos and the sprawl caption, it is strange that the city is just planted in the middle like las vegas in the nevada almost.