The 9-Minute History of Charlotte, NC, in an Animated Pop-Up Map

Rob Carter's Metropolis is a video pop-up book for urban history nerds. Or a history lesson for pop-up book nerds.

Rob Carter's Metropolis is a trend trifecta: cartography, cut and folded paper, and urban history. Architecture videos--when they're good--can be jaw-dropping. But that's usually because they look so fantastic: realer than real, whether renderings or film, they turn buildings and cities into exaggerations easier to love or hate.

Carter (British-born, Brooklyn-based) took a...