I'm one of the designers at funda (largest Dutch real estate listing site) -- though on the Personalisation team and not the Search or Presentation teams. This

I'm one of the designers at funda (largest Dutch real estate listing site) -- though on the Personalisation team and not the Search or Presentation teams. This is definitely a beautiful and useful visualisation and something we've been thinking about for a while too. We've found that in an average real estate search people very much appreciate information about the neighbourhoods they come across when finding relevant properties. The thing I love about this is -- like some others pointed out already about Rotterdam -- is that it tells a genuine story about a neighbourhoods history in a way a real estate agent wouldn't be able too. In the US there's Trulia Hindsight built by Stamen Design which includes animation: http://hindsight.trulia.com http://hindsight.trulia.com