Thanks to Google Maps Street View you can see almost every place in the world live, as if you were physically there. Thanks to a new feature of Google Maps, it is now possible to view photos from a few years earlier, thus becoming a truly effective way of seeing how a street, road or building has changed over the years.
This is possible because Google renews Streetview images every X years depending on the place, starting from 2007, the year in which this project was launched.
Basically, one can go back in time (virtually) and look at images from the past .
The function is very easy to use and just open Google Maps.
Then open Google Maps and switch to Streetview view by dragging with the mouse the little yellow man who is at the bottom right on a road.
When you click and hold on the yellow man in Street View, the streets for which the function is supported are colored blue.
Then release the little man to look around and zoom in on the panoramic images.
At the top right there is the date of the photos which, in a city like Rome, should be 2012.
Then press on the clock and choose a different date from those available .
If you don't see a clock, it means that older photos aren't available for that area.
The historical function of StreetView is very useful to see how a new construction area has changed, to discover wastes of Italian public money of unfinished buildings, to see how certain skyscrapers have grown such as the towers in New York or the Brazilian stadiums of the World Cup.
Areas affected by natural disasters are also interesting to see how they looked before they were destroyed or how they were recovered and rebuilt.
For example you can see the Arena Castelão stadium in Brazil or the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona under constant construction.
If you want to go even further back in time, see the galleries of historical maps, ancient images and photos .
