This theme has been done any number of times over the years. I seem to remember something from the late 19th Century showing a forest going ghostly as a skyscraper faded in. There's also a one-pager I know is around here somewhere, with a hand reaching up in each panel. The hand changes from an infant clutching a parent's hand to a withered old man touching the hand of a nurse, with the different stages of life between.
Crumb did a fine job, you could have worse posters than that in your kitchen.