Grids are useful on flat land but do not make much sense when they're imposed on steep hills - but that's exactly what was done in San Francisco. At least there, the weather never causes the streets to get icy. It's still hair-raising to drive down some of those SF streets, though.
hebneh I have legitimately been on roller coasters less steep than the streets of San Francisco, I would be terrified if I was the one driving through it. But I love grids because it makes navigating cities so easy because a lot of times, at least in NYC and Philadelphia the streets one way are numbered.
As a person who suffered through Boston's streets for the better portion of their life, the logical layout of SF is an absolute breath of fresh air, no matter how steep the hills!!
Perhaps a whole city of Lombard streets would make you change your mind. As to the problems with hills meeting Grids, San Fran's approach is better than NYC's they just drained lakes and cut down hills in Manhattan to stick to the grid
The Roman's had the Cardo and the Decumonus. They were the two main roads that met each other perpendicularly with the Cardo being the north-south orientation and the dec being east-west. This would go onto to have a major influence in street planning through history. It's the one of the first example of a "main street"
+Mr. White - technically you are right that "Military camps =/= civilian cities", but many civilian cities were established on what had been military ones. In England, for example, York and Chester both incorporate parts of the Roman grid system in their street layouts, although in both cases later development has altered the alignments of some of the streets.
There have been grids at other times too. Oxford was originally laid out with a grid pattern when it was one of a number of new cities founded along the border of Wessex and Mercia. before those kingdoms merged to become the basis of England. The grid pattern is still there if you look carefully, but only within the part that originally had it.
I was looking for a good general explanation on why US cities are (usually) so precisely designed under a grid pattern and this video provided me a clear, quick, good one. As a citizen of a country where cities usually spread organically and under radial designs from medieval cities tradition, studying US grid cities is always a source of surprise and knowledge. Nice video, good job!
Before Google Maps, a well ordered Cartesian grid system made it much easier to find your way around. Google Maps must be a real lifesaver for Bostonians.
Did he ever return, no he never returned And his fate is still unlearned. He may ride forever 'neath the streets of Boston He's the man who never returned. -Kingston Trio.
A grid pattern for city streets is actually much more walkable than a grid pattern of curvy streets and dead end streets. Being more walkable they were also more suitable in the days of the horse and buggy too. Not until the age of the automobile did curvy suburban neighborhoods develop which are far less walkable in a attempt to reduce traffic flow through residential neighborhoods. At the same time many of the grid streets in residential neighborhoods got the speed bumps to slow down traffic and reduce it.
there are always pedestrian passageways through or between buildings in historic centers though, in suburban areas in the US they should have planned better in that sense but they could still change things and build indipendent bike lanes that weave through the neighborhoods and have right of way when crossing car roads.
@@Maurazio Indeed in fact this is how the artificially (rather than merely organically following the land features) suburban curvy plan became more common in Europe, plan the pedestrian paths to be straight make the death tin paths long and windy = more people just walk than get in the death tin to go around the corner.
I've spent most of my short, so far, life living and travelling on cities with irregular grid patterns and I never had trouble going anywhere, even before googlemaps became a thing. Now that we do have maps on our smartphones I find it almost impossible to get lost.
As a pedestrian, I love the grid system. Instead of having one straight fastest route between my destinations I can change my path everyday without feeling guilty about not taking the "fastest" path as they are all more or less equal. Also - After college I lived in Edmonton where the grid system is so intense that you can easily determine the location of a building based on it's address. For example, my local Costco was at "12450 149 St ", where the first three digits "124" was the cross street, so the building is located at corner of 124 Ave and 149 St, how cool is that!! On a side note, one of my colleagues thought it was cute that the streets in Ontario had "names" lol
I agree! Also, it's harder to get lost with a grid system. In cities where the streets keep curving here and there, I have to constantly stop and survey my surroundings to lesson my chances of getting lost.
Unfortunately they are not only more or less equal in the distance-sense but also more or less equal in the scenery-sense. Essentially however you change you have walked only one single trail in a super homogeneous city.
Oscar Blanco The grid system is still easier than the "curvier" system (sorry, not sure what to call it). I've visited many places, and when the road curve all over the place, it is easy to get lost, and harder to backtrack to where you were originally. Sure, not all grid systems are the same, but it still is easier than roads that go all over the place.
cities with no grid: more beautifull, around every corner is a new street with new things. cities with a grid pattern: more efficient and getting lost is almost impossible.
@Luke N Many beautiful cities in Europe are at least loose grids. Although in U.S, Australia, Canada and really in most new developments are horrible if they don’t have a grid.
@@matthewcollins4764 I think that is mostly because those cities in Europe were organically expanded to what they are today. Started as a small village and expanded over many centuries to what they are today. There never was 1 plan designing the whole cities but countless plans on how to add a new street to what already exists. I think that is also why new developments trying a loose grid often fail, because it is designed instead of grown over time and designing a loose but logical and interesting grid without having decades of growth is incredibly hard.
@@matthewcollins4764 I would not say most beautiful cities in Europe are grid.. Some are but some are not.. However, in the larger cities there tends to be a mixture.. A twisting old center with newer grid areas added later. Eg Eixample in Barcelona... London is pretty well without any grid system bar a few areas of suburban housing surrounded by twisting roads..
I live in Charlotte. It’s hilly, and is the literal complete opposite of a grid pattern. Traffic is horrendous in this 3 million + metropolitan greater area
And we've gotta be able to make a u-turn in a six horse buggy! As a truck driver, I love driving in Salt Lake/Ogden because it's so easy to get around with the wide streets, and freeways that actually make sense.
Adaptation of nation-wide grid pattern for cities looks promising on an aerial view, above few hundred feet from the ground. But, often these patterns create lifeless streets that city spaces become too large to generate human-scale activities. The grid has obvious advantages, no question about that. However, I believe adaptation of the grid in response to local context is more crucial, in creating a truly unique city, streets and spaces. Melbourne's CBD grid is a strong example. The grid is sensibly implemented with a slight slant with the true north, parallel to Cities major water way, the Yarra River. In doing so, the city not only had the opportunity take advantage of all benefits (such as winter sun, and summer shade), but also could align its main streets to capture the beauty of the waterfront land.
One strategy to create more visual interest in a grid street pattern is to have little jogs in the street, closing out the view along the sightlines. A good example is North Michigan Avenue in Chicago, with small offsets (by about the width of the street) at the Chicago River bridge and the Water Tower, providing something better to look at than endless recession.
OH no, lifeless cities... peh, everyone knows the life in a city is by the attitude of its citizens and the charisma of its neighborhoods. You don't get 'lifeless' by using grids. Grids are efficient and help utilize city utilities and infrastructure the best. You don't like it - get the floop out and go live in the country.
I just finally saw this video! Millwaukee, where I grew up, makes so much more sense now. We even have a 7 Mile Road too! They have a great flea market there. Anyway, thanks!
It would be interesting if you did a video on how the California mission, presidio, and pubelo systems (and later the Ranchos) influenced the development of cities.
Some of the downsides of this type of road system is the huge increase in % of a city that is road surface, well into the 40%(in Portland), which means high infrastructure costs and lower gross density. From an environmental point of view the more road you have(up to 30% higher than in other layouts) the more impermeable surface leading to problems in groundwater management. And while at first, it might seem that more roads lead to better access by car, the issue comes with the increase in the number of 4 way intersections breaking up flow, there is a reason it's called gridlocked :)
To address the traffic issue, that's why you use large grid sizes and high-flow intersections. Houston, for example, doesn't even use conventional intersections when space allows for a double diamond interchange instead.
The grid system was invented before cars, look at la chaux-de-fond in Switzerland which was rebuilt after a fire in the 1790s. the primary need was to accomodate factories and have streets to transport large quantities of goods. The grid is much more dense but the streets narrower. The grid system has an advantage though, for example you can create superblocks of 4 blocks, ban all non-residential cars or all cars inside these superblock and pedestrianize them, build playing areas, parks and dog parks. In organic cities it's so built up that you cannot go back in time and decide to have more trees in the city center, the US can still do that if they wanted to.
In Atlanta, the grid only covers Downtown and part of Midtown. The rest is unordered, windy, and often very hilly streets. Sometimes it's hard to tell if you are on a major arterial road or in the middle of nowhere.
Checked it out. I see it, but it's more along the lines of a grid with freeform space inside each grid cell, especially once you get past the first loop. The Post Oak in particular area can be described a grid of uniformly shaped paintings, but each painting itself is unique.
Anywhere you want to go in Houston, you have 20 different ways to get there. I love the grid in Houston. You can't ever get lost either as a pedestrian or a driver. It's easy to figure out East vs West etc
I love the layout of lower Manhattan. It is not only more organic than the striclty grid pattern of Midtown, but it also doesn't disorganized and messy either
London's street plan is so complex that taxi drivers need a university degree to get there licence. I have lived in London all my life and still keep a map in my bag. Though I never worry about getting lost because sooner or later you will come to bus stop or train station.
I am glad I do NOT life in a city with a grid pattern. All the streets are the same, just one straight line, mindnumbing. I life in a small town called Utrecht, the Netherlands. Every street has it's own bends and curves. It is just a gut feeling, but that is how I think about it.
I live in NYC I actually like the grids because it makes navigation quite easy (It's nearly impossible to get lost in Manhattan) since everything is named in quite unimaginative naming of numbers. However I will agree some non conformity is actually good. A mix of both would be far more liveable and nice. If anything it would be nice to not only have rectangles but other geometric shapes to add some life and curves in the surrounding areas.
I like Dutch street layouts, each neighbourhood has its own vague grid pattern, so it's fairly easy to find your way, but doesn't seem incredibly artificial like American grid patterns. A lot more thought goes into new neighbourhoods too, Houten is a great example and not prioritising cars is great. Cycling around Papendorp felt weird though, everything felt really big. I wouldn't say that Utrecht is a small town either, I think it's pretty big!
Honestly Mardiff, European street layouts are so much more beautiful without the grid. So many towns in NL, F, E, GER and so on with quaint little streets
I agree that the gridded cities are more efficient, only a fool would disagree... I mean, it's pretty obvious which system is more efficient but God gridded cities are ugly unlike European cities.
Probably for the same reason that Europe went for them the lower traffic speeds and much lower rates of distracted driving results in a far lower death box attrition rate on the population. This is of course before factoring in the much larger benefits of reduced lung disease from people usually walking rather than driving for distances of 100 meters but the traffic fatality rate reduction alone more suits the human centrist development of Europe.
Great piece. You should consider doing one on the grid (are not grid) of New Orleans and the uniqueness of the city streets and neighborhood because of the flow of the Mississippi river.
How come you didn't mention the Romans?? So many American founders were inspired by a renewed interest in the classics, I would be surprised if there wasn't an influence. Also, I love your video series, they are always a great informational video to watch when I get home from work!
Los Angeles is also a great example. You can tell how old school the street grid is in downtown Los Angeles is because it’s diagonal, but outside it’s a north-south and east west grid.
It's hilarious when people try to use grids on hilly terrain, the founders get intoan arguement about grid orientation, or (in the case of Seattle) Both. Then you end up with grids that don't align to one another, causing weird dogleg intersections that get people lost. There is also West Dravus St., which blithely tries to climb straight up a ludicrously steep hill. (It's nearly useless. I've seen Semis jackknife on it in a mild rain. Makes for fun skiing on the rare occasions it snows tho) I remember seeing street designs broken into types as followed: Grid, Parallel, Fractured Parallel, and Loops and Lolipops. The last one being an amusingly quaint way to say "Suburban hellscape you'll surely get lost in". Plus there's odd examples like Paris that were deliberately obtuse so as to make invasion difficult
First as to Paris, Paris was "redesigned" starting under Napoleon III and continued after WWI to eliminate all of the small narrow streets of Revolutionary Paris. Those narrow streets were easy to block off and required the use of infantry to remove the barricades. The plan for Paris since Napoleon III has to make wide streets that permit the use of cannon to be cleared of obstructions and thus reduce the risk of a revolution. Second, As to hilly terrain, I grew up in Pittsburgh and while Pittsburgh was created decades after Philadelphia, the Pittsburgh streets are a mess. What happened is when Pittsburgh was founded, several other “cities” were founded up and down Pittsburgh’s three rivers. As the City expanded, it took over these other cities, but each city had their own grid pattern and the grid rarely matched. Thus you had streets that end on one cross road, but then restart a block down that cross road for that cross road is where two grid systems meet each other. Worse, a grid was maintain up the Mt Washington hillside, that ended up with streets so steep, steps had to be installed instead of a conventional road. There are often houses on these steps and the only was to and from those houses are the steps. Now most of the old frontier roads went along the easiest route by horse drawn wagon, thus have a lot of turns and where these old roads meet, towns were built with grids based on whatever the roads were doing at that point. This created even more different grids as the City of Pittsburgh slowly expanded to take over these areas. Worse the rivers cause different grids on different sides of the river. I once was walking in the Oakland section of Pittsburgh and was asked by a man in a car where did 18th Street become South 18th Street? I had to tell him, it never does and he was not even on 18th street any more. When the city took over what is now the Southside of Pittsburgh, instead of renaming the numbered streets, the City just put the Word “South” in front of the number. Thus 18th street had nothing to do with South 18th street except it is in the same city. I had to tell him how to get to the Southside and then to look for South 18th Street. Thus the City of Pittsburgh Streets are confusing to non natives. Natives Pittsburgh just accept them as they are for we have to and we are use to these problems. As to numbered streets, they start in downtown Pittsburgh and go up along the Allegheny River but once out of downtown end at the Cliffside that separates that section of the City from the part on top of the Cliffside. Pittsburgh has numbered Avenues that go east from downtown Pittsburgh but not always (for example, Sixth Avenue, ends where it meets Fifth Avenue as you leave downtown Pittsburgh, before they meet, both Avenues are east west Roads). And let me not get into the South Hills of Pittsburgh. Do to the escapement of Mt Washington going south from Pittsburgh meet climbing that Cliffside. Thus it was NOT done till after the Civil War. On the other hand the South Hills had some of the best coal for steel making and thus mined extensively even before the Civil War. To get the coal to the Iron and Steel mills required the coal to be moved by train around Mount Washington to either McKees Rocks (down the Ohio from Pittsburgh) or McKeesport (Up the Mongahelia River from Pittsburgh) and then shipped by barge to the mills. This lead to not only rail lines in those directions but the road network heading to those two areas NOT Directly to Pittsburgh. Starting in the 1860s an Funicular (What we in Pittsburgh called an “Incline”) was built up Mt Washington to connect to a narrow gauge rail line that used abandoned coal mines through Mt Washington to haul coal from the South Hills to the Incline and from the incline to the steel mills. In the 1880s the tunnel was ruled to be unsafe for passengers so two new Inclines were built, one to the top of Mt Washington, the other from the top to the narrow gauge railway. This lasted till 1905 when an new Tunnel was built through Mt Washington this time for electric streetcars. This opened up the South Hills to people working in Pittsburgh. In 1927 the Liberty Tunnels were drilled through Mt Washington to further open up the South Hills. While this work should have straightened out the roads in the South Hills, the problem is it did not, for by the 1920s, the South Hills of Pittsburgh was going three different directions at the same time. To McKeesport, to McKees Rocks and downtown Pittsburgh and everybody wanted roads to all three places. Thus the South Hills is noted for roads that go in all three directions and that is rarely compatible. Worse each old coal “patch” had its own grid, that was based on whatever the local main road went. As the South Hills became suburb as opposed to collection of coal patches, the suburbs sometimes added to these Coal Patches, but other times independent of them. This leads to a further mess of the roads. A good grid pattern would help the City of Pittsburgh and its suburbs but that means tearing up the present mess and starting fresh and no one wants to do that. Thus the mess remains for to fix it means adopting a long term plan, and no one really wants to do that, Between the hillsides, the rivers, the old coal patches and that the city expanded by annexing existing towns with their own grid pattern, Pittsburgh road system is a mess and unless you are a native and grew up with it, it is almost impossible to understand.
That may be why the cost of living is low in the Phoenix metro area. It's laid out like a grid and it's easy to build out. In the Denver area, street placement is a bit more random.
To be fair the much higher cost associated with the risk of dying by car also decreases land values this is why most older cities didn't lower their land values to let the death machine rule , death machines can take the long way around and tend to kill less people on roads that require their operators to pay a modicum of attention so worked out for the best.
Interviewer asks the cities on a TV show: *So why many cities in the United States use a grid?* _Boston_ : IDK I don't do so. _San Antonio_ : Look at me! I cannot understand what grid's for. _Albuqerque_ comes in: Drive my riverfront and you'll see...
Grids are great. Without them you use more fuel, take longer to reach destination, its harder for new comers to find places, it makes crazy local transit rules to overcome weird roads layout. I know cause I live in a city where avenues die on nothing and streets don't connect to each other by 5 meters distance.
Of New York's grid, Jean-Paul Sartre once observed "Jamais egaré, tourjours perdu." Never led astray, but always lost. That is, there is a difference between knowing where one is and feeling it.
Los Angeles is grided, especially the San Fernando Valley. It makes navigation so much easier when you have a driving job. It eases up traffic too, when one street is busy, hop onto a parallel street.
I live in Chicago and the whole thing is just one hue grid. There are no major stress that go diagonal and is super easy to navigate if you just know at least half of the major streets of the city, by age 14, I pretty much knew at least half of them.
Grids have two big advantages for cars: no dead-end roads (seriously, wtf is up with those?), and if you miss your turn you can just take the next one a block down. You should be able to get to anywhere from anywhere, preferably without u-turns or having to loop way around disconnected areas. ;)
Death tin cans suck though why do you think that European cities became more curvy to discourage taking the death box 100 meters around the corner when it's only 20 meters away became a thing. Having only a fraction of the population killed by death machines was considered a good thing in humanist societies.
Yeah, Spanish cities in the New World definitely had an influence, thanks to the Laws of the Indies. Santa Fe, NM is a great example of a Laws of the Indies grid. I should do a follow-up video on that!
Im a bit disappointed you didnt give the ancient romans the credit for inventing the grid system, or at least the ones who made it popular, since it was the main inspiration for the spanish to use it in their colonies in the american continent.
This was my thought. I have maybe mistakenly thought the grid system was a direct copy of European cities because in Mexico all cities have a grid of some sort, including the oldest colonial areas which by appearance and character are identical to cities in Europe.
Another 1-mile grid: Johnson County, Kansas. The entire county has one road every mile. It's the reason suburban development from Kansas City has been able to grow and spread there so efficiently and easily.
You won't get it, when people say they show you next time it never comes out....I've been waiting since November 2006 for my 4th grade art teacher to show me how Lenticular printed pictures work.
In my german hometown Mannheim they also adopted a grid for the inner old city. People who live there have weird street names like "C4, 20" in their adresses and it's driving me crazy. As much as I understand that a grid is convenient in many aspects, I've still gotta say that it makes for a really, really boring looking city.
Fun fact that in Europe most city maps look like polar coordinate systems. In Hungarian we even have two different words for 'boulevard': 1. sugárút = a boulevard that goes radially outwards from the city center ('sugár' meaning radius) 2. körút = a boulevard that goes tangentially around the city center ('kör' meaning circle) And 'út' simply means street.
many cities in New England do not have a grid pattern Providence and Boston and New Haven are great examples of cities with random street plans in fact I nearly got lost in Providence and New Haven because of their random streets
You can always tell an old town in New England by the way the town center is laid out; older towns such as Stoughton and Wrentham in Mass have a triangular, almost nuclear layout with roads meeting up in a triangle toward the center, and newer cities like Worcester have a more typical "Main Street" line layout. Unfortunately old towns that became big cities like Boston and Providence are often difficult to navigate and don't bear traffic loads as well as grid cities such as Manhattan, Brooklyn or Philadelphia.
Detroit’s layout might’ve originally designed similar to spokes of a wheel with Woodward running north and south, Grand River and Michigan NW to SE west of Woodward, with Gratiot and Lafayatte SW to NE east of Wood ward. The mile roads don’t start until 7 mile road and ends at 8 mile in Detroit, but starts at 5 mile road in the suburbs and runs all the way to about 35 mile road or 35 miles from the center of Downtown Detroit. Cities with numbered streets make it easier to navigate such as NYC with lower numbers going south and higher numbers going north. Understandably these older cities are constrained by layout before major road networks were designed for cars, but it is kind of annoying navigating through a bunch of one way streets.
The city where I live was also laid out in a sensible grid. Then, in the late ‘60’s somebody decided that a large new development would have circular roads that enclosed other winding streets that went no where., with clever twists and turns to catch the unwary. Over half a century later, those who live outside of this development dread having to drive there. Even with GPS.
I live in the ‘burbs and the main streets being on a grid makes it so I don’t have to look up directions to a new place so long as I know it’s position relative to the closest main grid streets
Rather than square grid patterns, what do you think about hexagonal grid patterns? For every linear foot of street perimeter, hexagons would allow for more developable area. Plus you would save on transportation cost as point A to B travel would be more direct. Moreover, three-way intersections may perform better at enabling traffic flow compared to four-way? Especially if they are roundabouts
My European town from the medieval time has a star pattern. With the town hall and town square in the center and the main roads radiating from it, and a circular city moat around it.
The grid in many cities though have too many streets and avenues that are continuous and not intermittent all the way across town or metropolis. This seems to much space for pavement and not enough for house, i.e. San Francisco. Generally Portland has continuos avenues and intermitment but have silly issues with the same grid but different cities across the metroplis. Seattle has a 9x9 system, names streets and avenues across centers, numbered out from center and compass direction either before or after depending on avenue or street
Essentially, I do love both grid and cul-de-sac or something like what you can see in Europe. Both of them have it's own con's and pro's. For example, grid pattern fullfills the useful space for buildings while the other one doesn't. But, apart of that, grid pattern may cause uncomfort situation which the buildings are too dense while the non-grid one do leave some space which allows to add or build somrthing there. Well, I understand why some don't like non-grid and some don't like grid especially American and European, respectively. Because everyone have their own opinion plus they've their own way growing up and living with their surroundings. Well, I'm Malaysian and my country use both grid and non-grid but mostly grid. Non-grid pattern is mostly can be found in Kuala Lumpur. And also, the grid pattern in my country is really different than the US. Use google maps and you'll find how different it is.
I get the practicality of the grid but OMG its so boring. Even in NYC, just look up or down left and right and a straight shot. I prefer walking downtown. "mystery corners" with turns and hidden buildings and views. architecture that has to confirm to an organic growth pattern so the buildings are more interesting...I mean would the flatiron be the flatiron if it wasn't for that pointed intersection?
I would design my city with a street layout based on the natural landscape, but with some logic to it, & perhaps grid system in some areas. If it was designed around a railway, I would use a fan pattern like Karlsruhe.
Louisville is the grid on its western half, and twisting, curvy streets on its eastern half. The reason, as I understand it, is that the eastern half was built as a series of insular, "I've got mine, you get yours" neighborhoods designed to keep the "wrong people" out.
The main reason to move away from grids is gridlock. Roundabouts and cul-de-sac enable flowing traffic which is crucial in the modernday high density traffic. Something they never predicted back when grids were first introduced.
The place i live in is gridded but it's like the architect fell asleep leaving only half the streets connected and several blank spots then woke up go a black magic marker and drew some large lines to create major roads to the highway and then turned in his project in for approval.
It makes it easier for the pizza delivery guy.
And that's how we got to the moon.
Lack of landmarks will be nightmare for tourists though
Pizza time
Makes it easier to find your house maybe but the disadvantage of a grid system is that distances are longer.
@@90AlmostFamous you obviously haven't been to the US
Grids are useful on flat land but do not make much sense when they're imposed on steep hills - but that's exactly what was done in San Francisco. At least there, the weather never causes the streets to get icy. It's still hair-raising to drive down some of those SF streets, though.
hebneh I have legitimately been on roller coasters less steep than the streets of San Francisco, I would be terrified if I was the one driving through it. But I love grids because it makes navigating cities so easy because a lot of times, at least in NYC and Philadelphia the streets one way are numbered.
I just learn how to drive stick and driving In these streets up hill is one of the scariest thing I’ve ever done.
Oh man, try your neighbor up North, Seattle. While it doesn’t snow much here, the ice gets insane. Y’all are lucky in SF!
As a person who suffered through Boston's streets for the better portion of their life, the logical layout of SF is an absolute breath of fresh air, no matter how steep the hills!!
Perhaps a whole city of Lombard streets would make you change your mind. As to the problems with hills meeting Grids, San Fran's approach is better than NYC's they just drained lakes and cut down hills in Manhattan to stick to the grid
The city planners were playing sim city, that's why it's a grid.
We might trace the grid pattern even farther back to the layout of Roman military camps.
Alan Follett Harappa and Mohenjo Daro had gridded streets long before Ancient Rome even existed.
Romans some gridded urban planning off of the Greeks anyway
The Roman's had the Cardo and the Decumonus. They were the two main roads that met each other perpendicularly with the Cardo being the north-south orientation and the dec being east-west. This would go onto to have a major influence in street planning through history. It's the one of the first example of a "main street"
+Mr. White - technically you are right that "Military camps =/= civilian cities", but many civilian cities were established on what had been military ones. In England, for example, York and Chester both incorporate parts of the Roman grid system in their street layouts, although in both cases later development has altered the alignments of some of the streets.
There have been grids at other times too. Oxford was originally laid out with a grid pattern when it was one of a number of new cities founded along the border of Wessex and Mercia. before those kingdoms merged to become the basis of England. The grid pattern is still there if you look carefully, but only within the part that originally had it.
I was looking for a good general explanation on why US cities are (usually) so precisely designed under a grid pattern and this video provided me a clear, quick, good one.
As a citizen of a country where cities usually spread organically and under radial designs from medieval cities tradition, studying US grid cities is always a source of surprise and knowledge. Nice video, good job!
Where are you from?
@@vladtheimpalerofd1rtypajee316 Brazil
@@hamiltonftz At least Brazilian planning is better than Indian planning.
@defunctfullgdstorage3292 More like they have never attended planning school in the first place.
Before Google Maps, a well ordered Cartesian grid system made it much easier to find your way around. Google Maps must be a real lifesaver for Bostonians.
Mortimer Snead i still can't figure out Boston even with Google maps
Piotr Rywczak for America, yes. It's also a very walkable City
nycczz23 yes it's a colossal mess
Did he ever return, no he never returned
And his fate is still unlearned.
He may ride forever 'neath the streets of Boston
He's the man who never returned.
-Kingston Trio.
Mortimer Snead oh god i hate that song
A grid pattern for city streets is actually much more walkable than a grid pattern of curvy streets and dead end streets. Being more walkable they were also more suitable in the days of the horse and buggy too. Not until the age of the automobile did curvy suburban neighborhoods develop which are far less walkable in a attempt to reduce traffic flow through residential neighborhoods. At the same time many of the grid streets in residential neighborhoods got the speed bumps to slow down traffic and reduce it.
there are always pedestrian passageways through or between buildings in historic centers though, in suburban areas in the US they should have planned better in that sense but they could still change things and build indipendent bike lanes that weave through the neighborhoods and have right of way when crossing car roads.
By your logic my country should be one big as grid
@@Maurazio Indeed in fact this is how the artificially (rather than merely organically following the land features) suburban curvy plan became more common in Europe, plan the pedestrian paths to be straight make the death tin paths long and windy = more people just walk than get in the death tin to go around the corner.
Who wants to live on a circle city?
This comment was made by the Square Grid Gang
As Weird Al Yankovic once sang, "Everybody hates my Ring Town".
Moscow says hi
Radial roads and ring roads (many European cities) are so much better
I love grid pattern cities, it's easy to navigate and you won't get lost so easily.
But unfortunately this makes the city boring to navigate.
Then i promise that you will hate Boston lol
Мариос Христодулу You say that until you get lost and end up late to something important...
I've spent most of my short, so far, life living and travelling on cities with irregular grid patterns and I never had trouble going anywhere, even before googlemaps became a thing. Now that we do have maps on our smartphones I find it almost impossible to get lost.
Sedthsret Holy shit I went to Boston and got lost like 6 times
As a pedestrian, I love the grid system. Instead of having one straight fastest route between my destinations I can change my path everyday without feeling guilty about not taking the "fastest" path as they are all more or less equal. Also - After college I lived in Edmonton where the grid system is so intense that you can easily determine the location of a building based on it's address. For example, my local Costco was at "12450 149 St ", where the first three digits "124" was the cross street, so the building is located at corner of 124 Ave and 149 St, how cool is that!! On a side note, one of my colleagues thought it was cute that the streets in Ontario had "names" lol
I agree! Also, it's harder to get lost with a grid system. In cities where the streets keep curving here and there, I have to constantly stop and survey my surroundings to lesson my chances of getting lost.
Unfortunately they are not only more or less equal in the distance-sense but also more or less equal in the scenery-sense. Essentially however you change you have walked only one single trail in a super homogeneous city.
Oscar Blanco The grid system is still easier than the "curvier" system (sorry, not sure what to call it). I've visited many places, and when the road curve all over the place, it is easy to get lost, and harder to backtrack to where you were originally. Sure, not all grid systems are the same, but it still is easier than roads that go all over the place.
Rolling Guy agreed ;D
It's boring and we use cars too much
cities with no grid: more beautifull, around every corner is a new street with new things. cities with a grid pattern: more efficient and getting lost is almost impossible.
More beautiful?
@Luke N Many beautiful cities in Europe are at least loose grids. Although in U.S, Australia, Canada and really in most new developments are horrible if they don’t have a grid.
@@matthewcollins4764 I think that is mostly because those cities in Europe were organically expanded to what they are today. Started as a small village and expanded over many centuries to what they are today. There never was 1 plan designing the whole cities but countless plans on how to add a new street to what already exists. I think that is also why new developments trying a loose grid often fail, because it is designed instead of grown over time and designing a loose but logical and interesting grid without having decades of growth is incredibly hard.
@@matthewcollins4764 I would not say most beautiful cities in Europe are grid.. Some are but some are not.. However, in the larger cities there tends to be a mixture.. A twisting old center with newer grid areas added later. Eg Eixample in Barcelona... London is pretty well without any grid system bar a few areas of suburban housing surrounded by twisting roads..
I live in Charlotte. It’s hilly, and is the literal complete opposite of a grid pattern. Traffic is horrendous in this 3 million + metropolitan greater area
I'm from Philly. When I went to Boston, I just wanted to sit on the State House steps and cry.
And then there's SLC where they said "You know what? Let's just make it a coordinate system. And place a big visible landmark at (0,0)"
Temple Square ? I'm fairly certain that's what you mean?
And we've gotta be able to make a u-turn in a six horse buggy!
As a truck driver, I love driving in Salt Lake/Ogden because it's so easy to get around with the wide streets, and freeways that actually make sense.
That actually makes a lot of sense.
Adaptation of nation-wide grid pattern for cities looks promising on an aerial view, above few hundred feet from the ground. But, often these patterns create lifeless streets that city spaces become too large to generate human-scale activities. The grid has obvious advantages, no question about that. However, I believe adaptation of the grid in response to local context is more crucial, in creating a truly unique city, streets and spaces. Melbourne's CBD grid is a strong example. The grid is sensibly implemented with a slight slant with the true north, parallel to Cities major water way, the Yarra River. In doing so, the city not only had the opportunity take advantage of all benefits (such as winter sun, and summer shade), but also could align its main streets to capture the beauty of the waterfront land.
Great points and great comment! Thanks!
One strategy to create more visual interest in a grid street pattern is to have little jogs in the street, closing out the view along the sightlines. A good example is North Michigan Avenue in Chicago, with small offsets (by about the width of the street) at the Chicago River bridge and the Water Tower, providing something better to look at than endless recession.
I live in that city
LMAO at ignorant libs (aka B. K)
OH no, lifeless cities... peh, everyone knows the life in a city is by the attitude of its citizens and the charisma of its neighborhoods. You don't get 'lifeless' by using grids.
Grids are efficient and help utilize city utilities and infrastructure the best. You don't like it - get the floop out and go live in the country.
I just finally saw this video! Millwaukee, where I grew up, makes so much more sense now. We even have a 7 Mile Road too! They have a great flea market there. Anyway, thanks!
Thanks! This was my first video; gotta love using Apple Earbuds as a microphone. Haha
Yeah Milwaukee is probably the best example of a gridded city
It looks horrible. I'm too European I suppose... I like the 'organic' shapes of the streets in our cities.
LyleDeYounges You love getting lost huh
You are not getting lost if you know the citty.
@@RamsesTheFourth Some street roads look like they were drawn by a 4 year old
what do you mean?
@Ithaca It slows stuff down.
It would be interesting if you did a video on how the California mission, presidio, and pubelo systems (and later the Ranchos) influenced the development of cities.
This is a very well done video. Kudos
This is the first time I see an explanation that fit comom sense and really 100% fit reality.
Cos the US loves to play battleship and grids are so much easier to plot coordinates
Can you talk about hexagonal street design?
That could be a good video. I don't know of many (any?) places that use it repetitively, though.
City Beautiful New Delhi (?)
Like Amsterdam
If I'm right Canberra has some of those?
@@CityBeautiful The Millennial Project proposed those for their floating OTEC cities: tmp2.wikia.com/wiki/Aquarius
Ah... the birth of gridlock
Almost 3 years later. Can I have a video about non gridded cities?
A video for another day. No joke there. 3 years later he made one: th-cam.com/video/d9vDcfH03gs/w-d-xo.html
I like Philadelphia's grid. The city is super walkable because of the tight, easy to navigate streets. I would not like to drive them though.
It's boring though
@Lump Don't you think a grid is boring?
Thank you for your videos, condensed and easy to understand! Cheers
Some of the downsides of this type of road system is the huge increase in % of a city that is road surface, well into the 40%(in Portland), which means high infrastructure costs and lower gross density.
From an environmental point of view the more road you have(up to 30% higher than in other layouts) the more impermeable surface leading to problems in groundwater management.
And while at first, it might seem that more roads lead to better access by car, the issue comes with the increase in the number of 4 way intersections breaking up flow, there is a reason it's called gridlocked :)
LtKharn That's more a result of small blocks. Portland especially has tiny blocks
To address the traffic issue, that's why you use large grid sizes and high-flow intersections. Houston, for example, doesn't even use conventional intersections when space allows for a double diamond interchange instead.
The grid system was invented before cars, look at la chaux-de-fond in Switzerland which was rebuilt after a fire in the 1790s. the primary need was to accomodate factories and have streets to transport large quantities of goods. The grid is much more dense but the streets narrower.
The grid system has an advantage though, for example you can create superblocks of 4 blocks, ban all non-residential cars or all cars inside these superblock and pedestrianize them, build playing areas, parks and dog parks. In organic cities it's so built up that you cannot go back in time and decide to have more trees in the city center, the US can still do that if they wanted to.
Yep, what about the GRIDLOCK.
In Atlanta, the grid only covers Downtown and part of Midtown. The rest is unordered, windy, and often very hilly streets. Sometimes it's hard to tell if you are on a major arterial road or in the middle of nowhere.
Check out Houston. We live and bleed the grid system.
I thought Houston was a circular city.
Darth Utah 66 freeway wise yes. We have 5 loops. But the streets mostly run on the grid system. It’s quite difficult to get lost.
Checked it out. I see it, but it's more along the lines of a grid with freeform space inside each grid cell, especially once you get past the first loop. The Post Oak in particular area can be described a grid of uniformly shaped paintings, but each painting itself is unique.
Anywhere you want to go in Houston, you have 20 different ways to get there. I love the grid in Houston. You can't ever get lost either as a pedestrian or a driver. It's easy to figure out East vs West etc
Why wouldn't you?! It makes it SO simple. Miss your turn? No problem, just take the next one!
chicago's grid is really amazing when you fly in at night
I love the layout of lower Manhattan. It is not only more organic than the striclty grid pattern of Midtown, but it also doesn't disorganized and messy either
Atlanta is so hard to navigate. Even the new cities' streets are based on pig trails.
Atlanta is the opposite of a grid. It's a spaghetti bowl of bullshit curvy streets and dead ends. It really makes no sense.
Yeah the most Atlanta has is like a 5 by 5 grid then it just gets messier and then just a few blocks away it's like you're in the suburbs.
@@microbios8586 Sounds like London's streets. no straight line, all waving, cool.
@@microbios8586 makes no sense? Man cannot change the topography of a city... there's big hills and trees and creeks blocking paths
I live in the Atlanta area. The city of Atlanta is one of the easiest places to get lost. It's so disorganized.
London's street plan is so complex that taxi drivers need a university degree to get there licence. I have lived in London all my life and still keep a map in my bag. Though I never worry about getting lost because sooner or later you will come to bus stop or train station.
grids with non large blocks are great for walking and directions
I love the grid pattern, it makes the city easy to navigate.
I am glad I do NOT life in a city with a grid pattern. All the streets are the same, just one straight line, mindnumbing. I life in a small town called Utrecht, the Netherlands. Every street has it's own bends and curves. It is just a gut feeling, but that is how I think about it.
I live in NYC I actually like the grids because it makes navigation quite easy (It's nearly impossible to get lost in Manhattan) since everything is named in quite unimaginative naming of numbers. However I will agree some non conformity is actually good. A mix of both would be far more liveable and nice. If anything it would be nice to not only have rectangles but other geometric shapes to add some life and curves in the surrounding areas.
I like Dutch street layouts, each neighbourhood has its own vague grid pattern, so it's fairly easy to find your way, but doesn't seem incredibly artificial like American grid patterns. A lot more thought goes into new neighbourhoods too, Houten is a great example and not prioritising cars is great. Cycling around Papendorp felt weird though, everything felt really big. I wouldn't say that Utrecht is a small town either, I think it's pretty big!
Honestly Mardiff, European street layouts are so much more beautiful without the grid. So many towns in NL, F, E, GER and so on with quaint little streets
I agree that the gridded cities are more efficient, only a fool would disagree... I mean, it's pretty obvious which system is more efficient but God gridded cities are ugly unlike European cities.
Joseph Scharfenberg thank you for telling me that casa Bonita is a real place. Is it as good as made out in south park
Where is the video hinted at at the end about loops and cul-de-sacs. I've been curious as to why we've gotten away from the grid system?
Probably for the same reason that Europe went for them the lower traffic speeds and much lower rates of distracted driving results in a far lower death box attrition rate on the population. This is of course before factoring in the much larger benefits of reduced lung disease from people usually walking rather than driving for distances of 100 meters but the traffic fatality rate reduction alone more suits the human centrist development of Europe.
Great piece. You should consider doing one on the grid (are not grid) of New Orleans and the uniqueness of the city streets and neighborhood because of the flow of the Mississippi river.
Nice channel! Great work.
Thanks!
How come you didn't mention the Romans?? So many American founders were inspired by a renewed interest in the classics, I would be surprised if there wasn't an influence. Also, I love your video series, they are always a great informational video to watch when I get home from work!
They're easy to navigate.
Could you do an episode on Grand Rapids
how about grid pattern + non grid pattern?
my country adopts those 2 and it works pretty well
At 2:17 it looks like the lines next to the one you are looking at have dots but when you look at the dots they disappear.
Los Angeles is also a great example. You can tell how old school the street grid is in downtown Los Angeles is because it’s diagonal, but outside it’s a north-south and east west grid.
3:50 Does this "other video" exist?
It's hilarious when people try to use grids on hilly terrain, the founders get intoan arguement about grid orientation, or (in the case of Seattle) Both. Then you end up with grids that don't align to one another, causing weird dogleg intersections that get people lost. There is also West Dravus St., which blithely tries to climb straight up a ludicrously steep hill. (It's nearly useless. I've seen Semis jackknife on it in a mild rain. Makes for fun skiing on the rare occasions it snows tho)
I remember seeing street designs broken into types as followed: Grid, Parallel, Fractured Parallel, and Loops and Lolipops. The last one being an amusingly quaint way to say "Suburban hellscape you'll surely get lost in".
Plus there's odd examples like Paris that were deliberately obtuse so as to make invasion difficult
First as to Paris, Paris was "redesigned" starting under Napoleon III and continued after WWI to eliminate all of the small narrow streets of Revolutionary Paris. Those narrow streets were easy to block off and required the use of infantry to remove the barricades. The plan for Paris since Napoleon III has to make wide streets that permit the use of cannon to be cleared of obstructions and thus reduce the risk of a revolution.
Second, As to hilly terrain, I grew up in Pittsburgh and while Pittsburgh was created decades after Philadelphia, the Pittsburgh streets are a mess. What happened is when Pittsburgh was founded, several other “cities” were founded up and down Pittsburgh’s three rivers. As the City expanded, it took over these other cities, but each city had their own grid pattern and the grid rarely matched. Thus you had streets that end on one cross road, but then restart a block down that cross road for that cross road is where two grid systems meet each other. Worse, a grid was maintain up the Mt Washington hillside, that ended up with streets so steep, steps had to be installed instead of a conventional road. There are often houses on these steps and the only was to and from those houses are the steps.
Now most of the old frontier roads went along the easiest route by horse drawn wagon, thus have a lot of turns and where these old roads meet, towns were built with grids based on whatever the roads were doing at that point. This created even more different grids as the City of Pittsburgh slowly expanded to take over these areas.
Worse the rivers cause different grids on different sides of the river. I once was walking in the Oakland section of Pittsburgh and was asked by a man in a car where did 18th Street become South 18th Street? I had to tell him, it never does and he was not even on 18th street any more. When the city took over what is now the Southside of Pittsburgh, instead of renaming the numbered streets, the City just put the Word “South” in front of the number. Thus 18th street had nothing to do with South 18th street except it is in the same city. I had to tell him how to get to the Southside and then to look for South 18th Street.
Thus the City of Pittsburgh Streets are confusing to non natives. Natives Pittsburgh just accept them as they are for we have to and we are use to these problems.
As to numbered streets, they start in downtown Pittsburgh and go up along the Allegheny River but once out of downtown end at the Cliffside that separates that section of the City from the part on top of the Cliffside. Pittsburgh has numbered Avenues that go east from downtown Pittsburgh but not always (for example, Sixth Avenue, ends where it meets Fifth Avenue as you leave downtown Pittsburgh, before they meet, both Avenues are east west Roads).
And let me not get into the South Hills of Pittsburgh. Do to the escapement of Mt Washington going south from Pittsburgh meet climbing that Cliffside. Thus it was NOT done till after the Civil War. On the other hand the South Hills had some of the best coal for steel making and thus mined extensively even before the Civil War. To get the coal to the Iron and Steel mills required the coal to be moved by train around Mount Washington to either McKees Rocks (down the Ohio from Pittsburgh) or McKeesport (Up the Mongahelia River from Pittsburgh) and then shipped by barge to the mills. This lead to not only rail lines in those directions but the road network heading to those two areas NOT Directly to Pittsburgh. Starting in the 1860s an Funicular (What we in Pittsburgh called an “Incline”) was built up Mt Washington to connect to a narrow gauge rail line that used abandoned coal mines through Mt Washington to haul coal from the South Hills to the Incline and from the incline to the steel mills. In the 1880s the tunnel was ruled to be unsafe for passengers so two new Inclines were built, one to the top of Mt Washington, the other from the top to the narrow gauge railway. This lasted till 1905 when an new Tunnel was built through Mt Washington this time for electric streetcars. This opened up the South Hills to people working in Pittsburgh. In 1927 the Liberty Tunnels were drilled through Mt Washington to further open up the South Hills.
While this work should have straightened out the roads in the South Hills, the problem is it did not, for by the 1920s, the South Hills of Pittsburgh was going three different directions at the same time. To McKeesport, to McKees Rocks and downtown Pittsburgh and everybody wanted roads to all three places. Thus the South Hills is noted for roads that go in all three directions and that is rarely compatible. Worse each old coal “patch” had its own grid, that was based on whatever the local main road went. As the South Hills became suburb as opposed to collection of coal patches, the suburbs sometimes added to these Coal Patches, but other times independent of them. This leads to a further mess of the roads.
A good grid pattern would help the City of Pittsburgh and its suburbs but that means tearing up the present mess and starting fresh and no one wants to do that. Thus the mess remains for to fix it means adopting a long term plan, and no one really wants to do that,
Between the hillsides, the rivers, the old coal patches and that the city expanded by annexing existing towns with their own grid pattern, Pittsburgh road system is a mess and unless you are a native and grew up with it, it is almost impossible to understand.
That may be why the cost of living is low in the Phoenix metro area. It's laid out like a grid and it's easy to build out. In the Denver area, street placement is a bit more random.
To be fair the much higher cost associated with the risk of dying by car also decreases land values this is why most older cities didn't lower their land values to let the death machine rule , death machines can take the long way around and tend to kill less people on roads that require their operators to pay a modicum of attention so worked out for the best.
Interviewer asks the cities on a TV show:
*So why many cities in the United States use a grid?*
_Boston_ : IDK I don't do so.
_San Antonio_ : Look at me! I cannot understand what grid's for.
_Albuqerque_ comes in: Drive my riverfront and you'll see...
I love a video about the new loopy layout
Grids are great. Without them you use more fuel, take longer to reach destination, its harder for new comers to find places, it makes crazy local transit rules to overcome weird roads layout. I know cause I live in a city where avenues die on nothing and streets don't connect to each other by 5 meters distance.
Of New York's grid, Jean-Paul Sartre once observed "Jamais egaré, tourjours perdu." Never led astray, but always lost. That is, there is a difference between knowing where one is and feeling it.
Los Angeles is grided, especially the San Fernando Valley. It makes navigation so much easier when you have a driving job. It eases up traffic too, when one street is busy, hop onto a parallel street.
awesome quality video! hope more informative youtubers will be like you
Do the grids have to be square? Can they be triangular, hexagonal, or organic?
I live in Chicago and the whole thing is just one hue grid. There are no major stress that go diagonal and is super easy to navigate if you just know at least half of the major streets of the city, by age 14, I pretty much knew at least half of them.
my city has main roads that form a grid pattern where each square is almost exactly 1 square mile.
rockets-don't-make good-toast
Rational city built on irrational unit of measurement.
bananian we do it because it's AMERICA!
Past Telegraph Rd, 5 mile is fenkell rd, 6 mile is McNichols, 7 mile is 7 mile, 8 mile is Baseline rd going westbound and 8 mile going eastbound
Grids have two big advantages for cars: no dead-end roads (seriously, wtf is up with those?), and if you miss your turn you can just take the next one a block down. You should be able to get to anywhere from anywhere, preferably without u-turns or having to loop way around disconnected areas. ;)
Death tin cans suck though why do you think that European cities became more curvy to discourage taking the death box 100 meters around the corner when it's only 20 meters away became a thing. Having only a fraction of the population killed by death machines was considered a good thing in humanist societies.
3:49 Ayee that's Weston, FL
What about the spanish? I mean they used grids in the new world long before the US was a nation... so no nexus there or what?
Yeah, Spanish cities in the New World definitely had an influence, thanks to the Laws of the Indies. Santa Fe, NM is a great example of a Laws of the Indies grid. I should do a follow-up video on that!
Good thought.
Im a bit disappointed you didnt give the ancient romans the credit for inventing the grid system, or at least the ones who made it popular, since it was the main inspiration for the spanish to use it in their colonies in the american continent.
¡Arriba España!
This was my thought. I have maybe mistakenly thought the grid system was a direct copy of European cities because in Mexico all cities have a grid of some sort, including the oldest colonial areas which by appearance and character are identical to cities in Europe.
Another 1-mile grid: Johnson County, Kansas. The entire county has one road every mile. It's the reason suburban development from Kansas City has been able to grow and spread there so efficiently and easily.
"That's a video for another day"
WHERE IS IT??
You won't get it, when people say they show you next time it never comes out....I've been waiting since November 2006 for my 4th grade art teacher to show me how Lenticular printed pictures work.
@@Dank_Dank youu should track down his address and find him at 3 in the morning. #DemandTheKnowledge
In my german hometown Mannheim they also adopted a grid for the inner old city. People who live there have weird street names like "C4, 20" in their adresses and it's driving me crazy.
As much as I understand that a grid is convenient in many aspects, I've still gotta say that it makes for a really, really boring looking city.
So famous, even U2 wrote a song about Mannheim...
Fun fact that in Europe most city maps look like polar coordinate systems. In Hungarian we even have two different words for 'boulevard':
1. sugárút = a boulevard that goes radially outwards from the city center ('sugár' meaning radius)
2. körút = a boulevard that goes tangentially around the city center ('kör' meaning circle)
And 'út' simply means street.
many cities in New England do not have a grid pattern Providence and Boston and New Haven are great examples of cities with random street plans in fact I nearly got lost in Providence and New Haven because of their random streets
Roman Soiko prov is like half grid/half random
You can always tell an old town in New England by the way the town center is laid out; older towns such as Stoughton and Wrentham in Mass have a triangular, almost nuclear layout with roads meeting up in a triangle toward the center, and newer cities like Worcester have a more typical "Main Street" line layout. Unfortunately old towns that became big cities like Boston and Providence are often difficult to navigate and don't bear traffic loads as well as grid cities such as Manhattan, Brooklyn or Philadelphia.
New Haven has the oldest grid in the country
prushimush Traffic in New York and Philly suck ass too. Not much better than Boston.
Detroit’s layout might’ve originally designed similar to spokes of a wheel with Woodward running north and south, Grand River and Michigan NW to SE west of Woodward, with Gratiot and Lafayatte SW to NE east of Wood ward. The mile roads don’t start until 7 mile road and ends at 8 mile in Detroit, but starts at 5 mile road in the suburbs and runs all the way to about 35 mile road or 35 miles from the center of Downtown Detroit.
Cities with numbered streets make it easier to navigate such as NYC with lower numbers going south and higher numbers going north.
Understandably these older cities are constrained by layout before major road networks were designed for cars, but it is kind of annoying navigating through a bunch of one way streets.
Please do “the video for another day” now ... waiting on it
Tejveer TJ Oberoi still waiting.
The city where I live was also laid out in a sensible grid. Then, in the late ‘60’s somebody decided that a large new development would have circular roads that enclosed other winding streets that went no where., with clever twists and turns to catch the unwary. Over half a century later, those who live outside of this development dread having to drive there. Even with GPS.
Where is this
@@farajaraf Braindeadville US where if your address isn't the sum of two numbers it's too comlpex I guess.
I live in the ‘burbs and the main streets being on a grid makes it so I don’t have to look up directions to a new place so long as I know it’s position relative to the closest main grid streets
My town has nothing like grid streets. It looks like someone threw spaghetti onto a map.
Bryan VanPatten yh me to living in London I find this shit so weird in america
was that city shown at the end a phoenix neighborhood?
Rather than square grid patterns, what do you think about hexagonal grid patterns? For every linear foot of street perimeter, hexagons would allow for more developable area. Plus you would save on transportation cost as point A to B travel would be more direct. Moreover, three-way intersections may perform better at enabling traffic flow compared to four-way? Especially if they are roundabouts
Chicago’s grid system is a blessing. All addresses are based on their distance from Madison and State, so it’s easy to tell where any address is
Grid make a city feel small and boring
Fake news
Sucks to suck, they’re objectively good
My European town from the medieval time has a star pattern. With the town hall and town square in the center and the main roads radiating from it, and a circular city moat around it.
Salisbury, Wilts has gridded streets which were first laid out circa. 1200 AD
I can tell it is Portland without even seeing the next few seconds. There is the park blocks, Portland State and even the Vue Apartments.
How about a concentric circle design with alternating one way roads?
Atlantis?
The grid in many cities though have too many streets and avenues that are continuous and not intermittent all the way across town or metropolis. This seems to much space for pavement and not enough for house, i.e. San Francisco. Generally Portland has continuos avenues and intermitment but have silly issues with the same grid but different cities across the metroplis. Seattle has a 9x9 system, names streets and avenues across centers, numbered out from center and compass direction either before or after depending on avenue or street
Essentially, I do love both grid and cul-de-sac or something like what you can see in Europe. Both of them have it's own con's and pro's. For example, grid pattern fullfills the useful space for buildings while the other one doesn't. But, apart of that, grid pattern may cause uncomfort situation which the buildings are too dense while the non-grid one do leave some space which allows to add or build somrthing there. Well, I understand why some don't like non-grid and some don't like grid especially American and European, respectively. Because everyone have their own opinion plus they've their own way growing up and living with their surroundings. Well, I'm Malaysian and my country use both grid and non-grid but mostly grid. Non-grid pattern is mostly can be found in Kuala Lumpur. And also, the grid pattern in my country is really different than the US. Use google maps and you'll find how different it is.
Yeah Atlanta has about 5 blocks of grid-like streets and then it all turns catawampus.
I get the practicality of the grid but OMG its so boring. Even in NYC, just look up or down left and right and a straight shot. I prefer walking downtown. "mystery corners" with turns and hidden buildings and views. architecture that has to confirm to an organic growth pattern so the buildings are more interesting...I mean would the flatiron be the flatiron if it wasn't for that pointed intersection?
Where can I find the video for loops and cul-de-sac's?
The key person the NY commission was Governour Morris, author of the Constitution, from Pennsylvania
I would design my city with a street layout based on the natural landscape, but with some logic to it, & perhaps grid system in some areas.
If it was designed around a railway, I would use a fan pattern like Karlsruhe.
Louisville is the grid on its western half, and twisting, curvy streets on its eastern half. The reason, as I understand it, is that the eastern half was built as a series of insular, "I've got mine, you get yours" neighborhoods designed to keep the "wrong people" out.
What program did you use to make those 3D-like models of cities like Chicago etc. in the 1890s?
I didn't make those -- they were hand drawn by artists at the time. Amazing, right?
lol
i love your history videos
Because it is logical and very useful for planning and navigating. Duh!
Patrick EH But God grids are fucking ugly.
I fish at the lake in the top left corner at 2:14
Look at Hoboken they have a grid street pattern and they still have a population That is close to a small town.
What city is at 3:50 ? Thank you in advance!
What are some of the cities that have the same plans from the rail expansion?
Great information.
Hey, I'm interested in transferring schools to study Urban Planning, any tips? If it helps I'm transferring from SFASU to Texas Tech University
Give cities 3-d grids and it should be fixed
The main reason to move away from grids is gridlock. Roundabouts and cul-de-sac enable flowing traffic which is crucial in the modernday high density traffic.
Something they never predicted back when grids were first introduced.
The place i live in is gridded but it's like the architect fell asleep leaving only half the streets connected and several blank spots then woke up go a black magic marker and drew some large lines to create major roads to the highway and then turned in his project in for approval.