Google Earth: Identify the city

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

Well, most of the time the entire city isn't included in the picture anyway, so I don't see what's wrong with it. A sizeable chunk of the city is shown.

[KukriKhan]

This is another of Louis's planned communities, of which he is enamored (understandably; I am too).

At first blush, it doesn't look american/canadian, rather asian or former-soviet. But the strict diagonal layout defies classification as any particular continent's 'style' of civic planning.

This place was originally laid out on some student/teacher's grid paper, I think, with green areas strategically located, LOCs (lines of communication/roads) placed for maximum efficiency, and central assembly areas located at center, and 1 and 2 o'clock. I daresay that, even on foot, a resident living at 7 o'clock, could arrive at that race-track-looking area within two hours, with arms, or betting money, or a vote.

So I suspect: an american-educated city-planner somewhere in the former ussr "built" this city.

I'm off to Poland, and central/eastern europe for this one.

p.s. Although I appreciate Louis's intent in focusing our attention on a coo-o-ol geographic pattern, I also gotta give props to barocca's lament and appeal for context. In terms of this image interpretation game that we play here, knowing/seeing the surrounding farmland-swamp-desert-whatever, would help folks guess the region, and focus their search.

pps: Thanks for the north orientation. After google-searching whatever clues are provided, it's helpful to know one needn't reorient ones map to find the image.

[Louis VI the Fat]

I don't see what's wrong with my picture? Cutting off the edges is not different from zooming in a level. The only difference is that now the visible area is cut it off diagonally instead of horizontally and vertically, which was done to keep the peculair shape of the objext intact.
And this game is not meant to be easy! We're here to pose fiendishily difficult questions for each other..

But here's the city again:

[KukriKhan]

Hmmm... I wonder if that is fuel or water storage to the north-east - and is that the southern tip of an airport/airstrip up there also.

Zooming in, I don't see vehicles - very strange. Maybe I just missed them.

My preliminary guess: we're looking at a mid-sized, not-ancient city, a product of urban planning, somewhere in China. The purpose of this city is not immediately obvious. What do they do there besides live and breathe? What do they make there?

*goes off to look at random chinese cities of 125K - 250K population.*

[Sigurd]

It is indeed a strange location...
The surrounding landscape looks like the northern hemisphere above the warmer climate.
I think this might be a larger than 250K city (My hometown is a 250K city).
Where are the trains? and why does that belt around the main block look green?
In the larger picture there is a stadium. I wonder what they play there...

I wish for a closeup of this city to get my bearings on religion, traffic, housing etc..

edit: I wonder if the green belt is infact train tracks that moves around the large grid city.

[Sigurd]

I hate to say it... but I am stomped.

I can't seem to identify the cars on the picture nor the shape of their number plates.
The red pickup seems American.
The white next to it seems like a Fiat Uno.
The next white seems to be a pickup of some sort... Yugo?
The beige... is unknown Seat/ Citröen/Asian?
There is another white behind the blue which is rater big.
The blue looks like a Citröen Xsara Picasso.
Two cars enter the picture a red unknown and a black SUV, also unknown.
The silver small car could either be a Peugot 106 or a Fiat Palio...
All cars seem a little off though...

The church, a beautiful cathedral, does not look catholic to me but rather Protestant.
We can barely see some high-rise apartments in the background.
There is also another car parked outside the doorway, it has a strange contraption attached to it.

This is all I got from the picture… which is : the town is western.
In Canada somewhere?
The shape of those numberplates would have helped a lot

[Louis VI the Fat]

Hints:

-They speak a Latin language in this city.
-The city plan is not just geometrical, it is also highly symbolical. You can see this most clearly in the first picture, which shows only the part of the city of the original plan. For example, it is build up of a basic pattern of 6 x 6 groups of 6 x 6 blocks...
(You don't need to guess the meanings of the symbolism, but you could try to guess to which group the architects belonged. )

[barocca]

La Plata
B.

edit -
the only clue i got was "speak latin" = south america's

as for the rest of the clues, no comprende'
(i deduced plains and approximate latitude from the pic)
(and next time we need to remember to search on freemason as well as masonic)

[Sigurd]

barocca nailed it...

This was a tough one. But I had fun searching and I even involved my wife who had a go at it.
I guess the cathedral is Catholic after all ?

[barocca]

<-- that is a clue...

[Duke John]

Briefly scanned China, but could not find this pattern. Must be something special?

About the smilies; a nodding normal smiley and a nodding eastern smiley. East meets west?

It reminds me of communist district layouts...