Documentaries/videos about cities, viewable free online?

March 9, 2012 12:06 AM

Know of any interesting documentaries (or other sorts of videos) about cities freely available to watch online?

I'm thinking along the lines of Reyner Banham Loves Los Angeles, Mother City, Detroit Lives, this program on Mexico City from BBC Two, Urban Earth: Mumbai, this NHK World profile of Yokohama's Chinatown, or this endearingly retro 1985 piece on Vancouver's SkyTrain.

Really, just things to watch about any and all aspects of individual cities, especially if they're a little longer, a little older, or a little stranger than most internet videos.

posted by colinmarshall to media & arts (6 answers total)

How about some Geoffrey Baer tours of Chicagoland?
posted by esmerelda_jenkins at 1:08 AM on March 9, 2012

Probably not what you want. Billed as "Stranger than fact." My Winnipeg.
posted by Obscure Reference at 4:27 AM on March 9, 2012 [1 favorite]

The Biggest City in Brazil. What Comes to Mind?
posted by Tom-B at 7:49 AM on March 9, 2012

If you want to go way back, there's Man with a Movie Camera (1929) and Berlin: Symphony of a Great City (1927). Not quite a documentary in the traditional sense, but Rick Prelinger of the Prelinger Archives puts on great compilations of home movies from various cities which he then posts online, such as the Lost Landscapes of Detroit and Lost Landscapes of San Francisco.
posted by Ms. Toad at 9:00 AM on March 9, 2012

"Los Angeles Plays Itself" and I can't imagine another place more tarnished by misconceptions.
posted by stroke_count at 9:28 PM on March 9, 2012

Urbanized
posted by dydecker at 11:25 PM on March 9, 2012