This tilt shift photography is effective by its use of blur, focus, and selective detail. In a miniature piece details like small numbers, signs, details on people, would all be hard to achieve. I think that this photo is successful as looking miniature because of its lack of detail on the small figures and how the focus creates a focal point on the red bus.
The author goes on to describe that it was created using software instead of a tilt-shift lens. This is known as “fake tilt-shift.”