[jmulder]

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

[tripzilch]

Interesting, I stand corrected, yeah I could see it work in that context.