I've only just recently read an article in the much respected IEEE Computer Graphics And Applications journal which I think will be of interest to many people in the urban modelling & virtual cities field. In this article, Michael Jones (Chief Technologist of Google Earth) describes some of the philosophy behind the Google geospatial team's mission to "geospatially organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful". Much of the article focuses around the concepts of how Google is helping people find geospatial information (with Google Earth and Maps) by giving many examples of information that goes far beyond just a simple location (e.g. address, city, or country). Included in the article are examples of how Google Earth has been used for disaster relief, to help demonstrate environmental issues, or even monitoring viruses thus pointing out why people so joyfully embrace not only the ability to see the places in their lives but also why its important to be able to share the information.
The article itself can be found (despite the fact that the journal is subscription-only they have added a free download of this) at http://www.computer.org/portal/cms_docs_cga/cga/content/Promo/g4008_07.pdf. I think it is an excellent read which above all highlights how Google Earth and in extension 3D urban models & virtual cities on it (or indeed even not on it!) can be of great use in so many fields and areas today...
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