Maps of never-realized urban planning projects show the cities that could have been

These maps of unrealized city plans, collected by Andrew Lynch, provide a sort of Borgesian vision of alternate-universe cities that never came to fruition.

Click any image to embiggen.

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Above is a plan for a 1945 Boston rail expansion into the suburbs that never happened.

And a 1925 plan for rapid transit in Los Angeles that seems downright laughable now.

On the flip side, transit paradise Manhattan could have had a giant, futuristic expressway running through it, as this awesome-looking 1960s proposal sketch shows:

You can see more at Wired or on Lynch’s Tumblr, Hyperreal Cartography & The Unrealized City.