I am more than used to see maps and imagery, and to derive from them an operative knowledge of places I have never set foot on. But sometimes you fall on maps like the Carte de Cassini, the first general map of France, drawn by the Cassini family using for the first time a triangulated network during the XVIIIth century, which despite having a just approximative accuracy regarding non-linear features, renders well the mental image you may retain from summer childhood visits… no wonder that is the model for maps in fantastic novels (Lord of the Rings, Jules Verne or similar) or films (The Hallelujah trail).
It is common in geography to say that there is a rural framework. Thinkers as Ian Mc Harg introduced the idea of a territorial analysis by layers. All this can be seen, often, by a trained eye; east of Hokkaido, on the Konsen plateau, facing the Nemuro bay, these concepts are clear for anyone with google maps.
The lattice-shaped windbreak forest in Konsen Plateau, protected as Hokkaido heritage, are a curious example of an idea which certainly answers an environmental issue, which seems to have worked for a long time, but is probably invisible for a visitor not aware of the aerial image. The area is in the far north of Japan, swept by cold winds, so trees have been planted on a lattice to protect cultivation and livestock farms on the plateau. There are reticular lattices in other parts of the world (the Jeffersonian grid in the USA, roman centuriatio in Italy and other countries), but here trees in corridors over 100 m side is clearly interesting, especially when the linear forests merge with riverbank forests, or overalay with roads or other linear features. There are sections in which the frame is more minute. This is not like the old European roads with their margin trees, as roads only cross these linear forests, bur are not their axis. These are like inverse firebreaks.
What do all shantytowns would like to be when they grow up? a formal city. The shantytown of Palomeras Bajas, appeared during the large migrations to Madrid (1950s-1960s), was transformed during the 1990s into a middle class new neighborhood in which at least a part of the original population was relocated. The regional Parliament (A) was relocated to the area, facing a mall (B), near a revamped train station (C) and well linked to other new areas through Avenida Pablo Neruda (D).
This was a clearly illegal settlement, not like Puente de Vallecas, that appeared in a moment with almost no planning regulations. Here there was already a legal solution for the problem, but economic growth had to attain a certain level to allow the transfromation of the area with a substantial public investment (and also by private agents).