Some smarties at Carnegie Mellon have developed an algorithm that can deduce a city's visual "DNA," and we're scared to imagine what it would say about Atlanta. Shopping centers, anyone? To be fair, the software program had a hard time analyzing any overriding aesthetic for just about any U.S. city outside of a few outliers: S.F. = bay windows, NYC = fire escapes, Santa Fe = adobe. The task was easier in London, Paris, and Prague; when it comes to stylistic coherence, Europe can't be beat. [Slate]
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