Google Earth (like most of Google's products) was created for the lowest common denominator, a low-end computer with modest graphic capabilities.
Microsoft's Virtual Earth, while a bit more taxing on the hardware end, not only reveals cities in their high-res, 3D beauty, it presents you with more buildings per square mile than Google Earth. Since Google has opted to abandon Google Earth, I have too. And, while I'm at it, Google's Blogger has also been abandoned as many, many people's blogs have been rendered inoperable due to the dreaded "bX" errors we've encountered. Google once again refuses to address (that) issue and countless bloggers are stuck waiting for a fix that has taken months so far without resolution.