The grid system was obviously the layout of choice for all American cities from about 1930-WWII., after which suburban development became the norm.

I think most of us can agree that the grid system is much more effective, practical and smart than the winding, sprawly, cheesily-named suburban streets. I also think most of us agree that the amount of the latter is occuring at a disturbingly high rate...but are there any areas that have no abandoned the grid system? In other words, is there any city or town in the US that is actually developing a grid system or plans to? Or are we doomed to forever grow through impractical suburban developments?

Hmmmm....well actually (even though I'm in Canada it's the same here) I should explain the idea behind the garden plan you are referring to.

The grid system isn't as efficient as it may seem. In fact, in the end it works out about the same depending on just how things are planned from the beginning. See, no matter what the style of planning, in N. America the downtown is the central hub usually. Because of this, one way or another traffic ends up converging along a few select routes that lead to the CBD. Now, the grid system works well in the downtown itself to a point but don't forget that there have been many years for the current state of affairs to develop. One of the main drawbacks to this system though is that without adequate controls just about any street on the grid becomes a main artery. That means of course that during rush hour a quiet little street becomes filled with traffic it was never meant to handle. This makes for bad neighbours. Another reason the grid was abandoned was simply for aesthetics. Those windy streets are alot nicer to look at than pavement to the horizon walled by cookie cutter houses. Another advantage to garden style planning is the fact that people are forced to slow down. Add to this that people usually won't go down a street in these developments unless they have a specific destination on it to go to. Actually there are a multitude of advantages to garden style planning in terms of traffic flow and control. The failure of the areas is not in their layout but the densities that they usually serve. They don't make for easy redevelopment either thanks to the irregular lots and the inability to create new buffer zones. This has more to do with the thinking of past generations of planners more than anything but now that these areas are maturing we see the drawbacks. Also, these areas are cheaper to build (no backlanes, few sidewalks since they aren't needed thanks to the reduced traffic) As I say though, the only way to redevelop them is to basically raze entire blocks to suit the new needs.

What we have now in the up and coming world is new urbanism. These layouts are a mix of both worlds. The curves are gone for the most part but the straight streets are limited in length as a rule ( a block, maybe two) They have back lanes and sidewalks but the densities are also considerably higher. As well, they are still self contained communities meaning that they could be bordered entirely by freeways but within them you would get the 'old city' feel. Of course there is more to them than all this and there just isn't space here to explain it all. Nevertheless, the days of the simple grid are done and probably won't be back. The mix of grid and garden styles though is the trend of the future in N. America.

Baltimore is a grid city. The three most massive development projects in the city (downtown's Westside Initiative, John's Hopkins East Baltimore Bio-tech Park and residential component and Univ of Maryland's Bio-tech Park and residential component) all use a pre-existing grid system. I guess developers think Baltimore's been using the grid for so long that it'd be foolish to abandon it now.

In Miami the grid system was never abandoned. Even in the far flung suburbs the grid system is still being used on newly constructed roads in which streets still have numbers not names. 99.9% of streets still go directly east-west or north-south.

I think most of us can agree that the grid system is much more effective, practical and smart than the winding, sprawly, cheesily-named suburban streets.

Nope. Studies show that winding streets are more popular hence their abundant use in all types of medium to light density development. They are more aesthitically pleasing & if designed right can reduce crime, traffic speeds, & increase walkability.

Grid systems are best used in & adjacent to the most dense areas of development in places where land uses & densities can & are expected to evolve.

I believe the future is going to have a combination of both with arteries & lower density areas are built with the more aesthitically pleasing winding system & the denser central areas using the grid system. I have noticed this trend in some of the recent large scale planned city developments.

Let's not forget that there are plenty of cities like London that have perfectly navigable streets without a grid system. It's more a matter of how the streets "make sense" with each other. Grids are easier to learn if you're not familiar with the city, but they don't guarantee efficiency.

And especially in suburban neighborhoods, the last thing you want is a drag strip in your front yard. Straight roads make it much easier to speed than gently curved roads.

The grid system was obviously the layout of choice for all American cities from about 1930-WWII.

I'd say the grid pattern became ubiquitous in the mid-nineteenth century, not the 1930s. At least for the big cities.

I think a modified grid plan is best though. A system where it's basically a grid, but with slightly curving streets in residential areas. No you don't want a "drag strip" in front of your house i suppose, but you also don't want an aimlessly rambling street that just makes it easy for visitors to get lost in.

i like chicago's rigid grid puntuated by the occaiasonal diagonal. enough orthagonalism to never get lost, but still with some interesting 6-way intersections. i hate the idea of curving street subdivisions within an aerterial grid. it's the worst of both worlds in my opinion, limiting interconnectivity.

now, old world non-grids like london are TOTALLY different from american derived street systems. london isn't a grid, but its mish-mash of streets is all interconnected, much like boston, and it's the interconnectivity and completeness of "block" formation (be they rectangles, triagnles, pentagons or any other number of shapes) that is truly important in a street system, IMO.

LA has the best mix of grid and windy outta the way streets and hills!

It's not fair to use European cities as examples of urban planning as far as street layouts go. For one thing, for the most part the streets were "planned" long before there was any planning in place. To use London for example, the streets were simply foot paths that turned into roads and eventually main arteries. Any streets branching off of them are oriented to the road they begin at. In essence, the oldest quarters of European cities are the opposite of planning as they were never designed for any vehicular traffic at all save horse drawn carriages at best.

As for Miami being a grid system in even the newest areas...ummmm, any map will show that this isn't the case. The everglades guarantee that Miami is limited in its westward growth. Once the grid reached that far, that was it. Futher north and south you'll see that the garden style is indeed the most popular, although as a concession to the point, the densities are higher in these areas than in corresponding areas of other major US cities.

hopefully, im tired of the grid system its too uniform, nothing special about it. it's efficient but i dont like it, too predictable

I'd say the grid pattern became ubiquitous in the mid-nineteenth century, not the 1930s. At least for the big cities.



sorry.. typo. I meant 1830's.


I (sometimes wrongly) usually associate "grid" with urban and the other type with suburbran. So when you say places like London and Miami have different systems, that proves that they are not mutually exclusive. Miami has a grid, but London has the more winding, non linear streets. In that case, it is the opposite, where the grid systemed-area (suburban Miami) is less urban and walkable than the "garden plan" in that prevades most of London. So in some cases, grid does not necissarily mean urban, and vice versa.

I should clarify my question, in light of these posts: are we through with urbanity in America? I'm speaking it terms of new development, not existing urban development.

I should clarify my question, in light of these posts: are we through with urbanity in America? I'm speaking it terms of new development, not existing urban development.
Sorry, the question still seems a little fuzzy. What do you mean by urbanity?
I believe that what you're talking about are areas that are, ummm...all rounders. The type of place where you'll have a corner store and a couple of floors of housing on top of it ? Different styles of houses all along the street ? Basically the sort of thing you'll find in older neighbourhoods.

If that's the question then no, you won't see that again exactly. At least not in the foreseeable future anyway. One has to remember that the modern era of planning isn't all that old.

Let's go back in time here to try and explain this. In the year 1800 for example, most of the cities in America were still small towns if they existed at all. Then along comes some guy from the railway who's trying to figure out where the next railway route will lie. And of course somewhere along that line there will be a need for yards and shops to service the trains. He picks some backwater hole in the ground and says "that's it, the next boom town" and presto, the land rush is on. The first thing that anybody does is set subdivide a ton of lots to accomodate new houses. There is no zoning to speak of, just lots for sale. Nobody actually building this new boom town gives a crap about parks or land values. They just want to provide lots for people to buy when the railway moves in. So the simplest thing to do is to simply lay out a grid. If there are any trails in the area the grid will simply overlay and incorporate them. That was about as much diversity as you'd get. Over time the places grew and new grid sections were added. Now, this is important to remember as well but not one of these places had automobiles in mind when the first lots were sold. The grids were never designed for automobiles much less truck traffic.

Anyway, as the years passed neighbourhoods became run down, were reborn, became rundown again and so on. Or maybe they stayed wealthy or never became that way. The point is that they changed. Somebody decided to plant some trees here and some fool painted his house purple there. Whatever it was, nobody was actually controlling it for the most part. Then we hit the forties and fifties in N. America. All of a sudden somebody says "Hey, you know what people need ? A faster way to get around and a way to control everything from property values to neighbourhood beautification" Presto chango again, what we now have is the modern era of planning. Now the whole neighbourhood is planned exclusive of what it might be adjacent to. While we were at it we figured we'd throw in some other amenities like planned parks and schools, commercial areas,...etc,. The end result was self-contained communities. This won't change.

However, what these areas usually did was to centralize services. For instance, there is no corner store every few blocks but instead a supermarket in the center of the community. Most people can't walk to work because the plan never included anything but residential and the services they needed. The old areas where created through continuous modification. The newer idea was to plan the whole thing out from the beginning. It simply wasn't an all inclusive plan though and in the end it has proven to be something of a failure because of the dependance it has created on automobiles.

Yes, there were planned neighbourhoods in the grid pattern days. Well, sort of anyway. Basically they were usually meant to appeal to the wealthy. And when people talk about the efficiency of the grid they really aren't defining what they mean. In what sense is it more efficient? In truth it isn't except in how it appears. Thanks to the automobile there is no efficiency as far as the grid pattern is concerned. The truth is that its only real advantage is for future renewal by making lot consolidation easier.

So in a nutshell, as long as we don't abandon urban planning principles the best you'll see as far the urbanity I think you're thinking of will be with the newest trend of new urbanism.

^ Well stated.

grid patterns are pretty much not going to be used anymore. the reason they were used to extensively 100 and 200 years ago was because transportation was less efficient and slower. people didn't want to take an hour to get to work just like people don't want to take an hour to get to work today. people have always liked short trips to whatever place they need to go to. 100 or 200 years ago, the grid pattern was the best, because the only transportation available back then was much slower: walking, horses, and carriages. streetcars and trolleys were better choices when they came along. none of these modes of transportation has the speed and mobility that a car has. because a car can go faster and can go anywhere roads are (horses are much slower, streetcars have to follow light rails or at least follow designated routes), people can live farther away from work and still have a somewhat short commute. 100 years ago, it might have taken 10 minutes to get to your work if you lived 1 mile away; back then, many people lived a block, 5 blocks, half a mile, or a couple miles from their work. now, it might still take only 10 minutes to get to work if you live 5, 6, or 7 miles away.

All of a sudden somebody says "Hey, you know what people need ? A faster way to get around and a way to control everything from property values to neighbourhood beautification" Presto chango again, what we now have is the modern era of planning. Now the whole neighbourhood is planned exclusive of what it might be adjacent to. While we were at it we figured we'd throw in some other amenities like planned parks and schools, commercial areas,...etc,. The end result was self-contained communities. This won't change.


Well, I don't know what those idiots in the 1950's were thinking but the organic planning style is anything but a faster way to get around. I have an aunt that drives a school bus for a suburban Chicago school district and she is constantly frustrated by how irrational and difficult self-contained planning can be. That is because many subdivisions now are built literally exclusive from surrounding housing and that can make it very frustrating to get around. One habit that developers have lately is to make subdivisions with no outlets whatsoever with surrounding subdivisions and only one outlet to a major artery so that in some cases one would have to exit their "housing development" onto a major road and enter the neighboring "housing development" just to go a couple of blocks, making a 1/4 mile trip into a 2 mile trip. It is ridiculous.

Well, I don't know what those idiots in the 1950's were thinking but the organic planning style is anything but a faster way to get around. I have an aunt that drives a school bus for a suburban Chicago school district and she is constantly frustrated by how irrational and difficult self-contained planning can be. That is because many subdivisions now are built literally exclusive from surrounding housing and that can make it very frustrating to get around. One habit that developers have lately is to make subdivisions with no outlets whatsoever with surrounding subdivisions and only one outlet to a major artery so that in some cases one would have to exit their "housing development" onto a major road and enter the neighboring "housing development" just to go a couple of blocks, making a 1/4 mile trip into a 2 mile trip. It is ridiculous.
Well no, what the idea was was to build the self contained communities but link them with high speed arterials. Within the communities themselves the idea was the exact opposite. Supposedly, they are pedestrian friendly because they provide paths for walking more direct routes but of course those are only placed at certain intervals. Not to mention of course that thanks to their low densities they are too spread out to make walking a practical idea to begin with.

Downtown LA is dope. Why? Because instead of having most of it as a regular grid, they made it a DIAGONAL grid, lol.

Downtown LA is dope. Why? Because instead of having most of it as a regular grid, they made it a DIAGONAL grid, lol.

haha yea, wtf? y'd they do that?

Sorry, the question still seems a little fuzzy. What do you mean by urbanity?
I believe that what you're talking about are areas that are, ummm...all rounders. The type of place where you'll have a corner store and a couple of floors of housing on top of it ? Different styles of houses all along the street ? Basically the sort of thing you'll find in older neighbourhoods.

If that's the question then no, you won't see that again exactly. At least not in the foreseeable future anyway. One has to remember that the modern era of planning isn't all that old.

Let's go back in time here to try and explain this. In the year 1800 for example, most of the cities in America were still small towns if they existed at all. Then along comes some guy from the railway who's trying to figure out where the next railway route will lie. And of course somewhere along that line there will be a need for yards and shops to service the trains. He picks some backwater hole in the ground and says "that's it, the next boom town" and presto, the land rush is on. The first thing that anybody does is set subdivide a ton of lots to accomodate new houses. There is no zoning to speak of, just lots for sale. Nobody actually building this new boom town gives a crap about parks or land values. They just want to provide lots for people to buy when the railway moves in. So the simplest thing to do is to simply lay out a grid. If there are any trails in the area the grid will simply overlay and incorporate them. That was about as much diversity as you'd get. Over time the places grew and new grid sections were added. Now, this is important to remember as well but not one of these places had automobiles in mind when the first lots were sold. The grids were never designed for automobiles much less truck traffic.

Anyway, as the years passed neighbourhoods became run down, were reborn, became rundown again and so on. Or maybe they stayed wealthy or never became that way. The point is that they changed. Somebody decided to plant some trees here and some fool painted his house purple there. Whatever it was, nobody was actually controlling it for the most part. Then we hit the forties and fifties in N. America. All of a sudden somebody says "Hey, you know what people need ? A faster way to get around and a way to control everything from property values to neighbourhood beautification" Presto chango again, what we now have is the modern era of planning. Now the whole neighbourhood is planned exclusive of what it might be adjacent to. While we were at it we figured we'd throw in some other amenities like planned parks and schools, commercial areas,...etc,. The end result was self-contained communities. This won't change.

However, what these areas usually did was to centralize services. For instance, there is no corner store every few blocks but instead a supermarket in the center of the community. Most people can't walk to work because the plan never included anything but residential and the services they needed. The old areas where created through continuous modification. The newer idea was to plan the whole thing out from the beginning. It simply wasn't an all inclusive plan though and in the end it has proven to be something of a failure because of the dependance it has created on automobiles.

Yes, there were planned neighbourhoods in the grid pattern days. Well, sort of anyway. Basically they were usually meant to appeal to the wealthy. And when people talk about the efficiency of the grid they really aren't defining what they mean. In what sense is it more efficient? In truth it isn't except in how it appears. Thanks to the automobile there is no efficiency as far as the grid pattern is concerned. The truth is that its only real advantage is for future renewal by making lot consolidation easier.

So in a nutshell, as long as we don't abandon urban planning principles the best you'll see as far the urbanity I think you're thinking of will be with the newest trend of new urbanism.

well...that was pretty well stated and answered all of my questions. From your point of view, at least. I tend to agree with most of what you said, except the fact that all grids were the result of poor planning and money-grubbing developers. NYC's and DC's grids were developed and implemented in avery thought-out, practical manner.

well...that was pretty well stated and answered all of my questions. From your point of view, at least. I tend to agree with most of what you said, except the fact that all grids were the result of poor planning and money-grubbing developers. NYC's and DC's grids were developed and implemented in avery thought-out, practical manner.
Um...lol, actually, no they weren't. DC was planned by a guy named L'Enfant. It is about the only city in America prior to 1920 that had any sort of street layout plan from the very start. As for New York, well....again, it was simply what it was, another grid. No different than any other around the country. You have certain routes that the grid overlaid (Broadway for example) but apart from them there is nothing special. Central Park was a conscious plan but even then it's important to remember that had the automobile been in widespread use Central Park never would have been created at the time (probably anyway) People tend to forget that things like freeways and subways were additions to an already existing street layout so when they talk about how some area or city is poorly or well planned they are thinking in modern terms. With the exception of cities like Vegas and Phoenix there are virtually no cities in America that are well planned as far as the street systems are concerned. Some simply work better than others thanks to luck mostly. We've also had time since the fifties to correct some of the zoning mistakes as industrial properties have been abandoned and redeveloped to fit with their areas.

You'll notice as well with Washington though that the moment you leave the DC borderland things start to change rather quickly in terms of the grand plan. Again, the pattern of 'ad lib' grid construction was at work. DC works today for a number of reasons but none of them have anything to do with the great scheme L'Enfant envisioned back in the day. He just thought wide streets and boulevards would look nice (as was the style of his time) They work great for automobiles so as you see, it was luck more than anything else that makes DC a workable city in this respect.

Anything else anybody wants to know, just ask. This is my one area of true expertise (lmao)

Um...lol, actually, no they weren't. DC was planned by a guy named L'Enfant. It is about the only city in America prior to 1920 that had any sort of street layout plan from the very start. As for New York, well....again, it was simply what it was, another grid. No different than any other around the country. You have certain routes that the grid overlaid (Broadway for example) but apart from them there is nothing special. Central Park was a conscious plan but even then it's important to remember that had the automobile been in widespread use Central Park never would have been created at the time (probably anyway) People tend to forget that things like freeways and subways were additions to an already existing street layout so when they talk about how some area or city is poorly or well planned they are thinking in modern terms. With the exception of cities like Vegas and Phoenix there are virtually no cities in America that are well planned as far as the street systems are concerned. Some simply work better than others thanks to luck mostly. We've also had time since the fifties to correct some of the zoning mistakes as industrial properties have been abandoned and redeveloped to fit with their areas.

You'll notice as well with Washington though that the moment you leave the DC borderland things start to change rather quickly in terms of the grand plan. Again, the pattern of 'ad lib' grid construction was at work. DC works today for a number of reasons but none of them have anything to do with the great scheme L'Enfant envisioned back in the day. He just thought wide streets and boulevards would look nice (as was the style of his time) They work great for automobiles so as you see, it was luck more than anything else that makes DC a workable city in this respect.

Anything else anybody wants to know, just ask. This is my one area of true expertise (lmao)


umm...what?

from wikipedia

Arguably the most famous grid plan in history is the plan for New York City formulated in the Commissioners' Plan of 1811, a visionary proposal by the state legislature of New York for the development of most of upper Manhattan.

And as for DC, It's not a traditional grid but for this thread we will call it a grid, since it falls under my definition of an "urban layout." That was clearly, as you stated, planned out by L'Enfant as opposed to just thrown on the earth when it was needed.

I guess I don't understand your distinction between grids that were developed through sheer human progress and evolution and those that were actually thought out, planned and designed with a specific purpose. I think NYC and DC fall into the latter.

I was thinking about this the other day actually. It's really annoying that our cities continue to develop in this way. Even when they have an opportunity to build completely new neighborhoods, long and windy roads are built that may be aesthetically pretty but are functionally ineffective.

umm...what?

from wikipedia

Arguably the most famous grid plan in history is the plan for New York City formulated in the Commissioners' Plan of 1811, a visionary proposal by the state legislature of New York for the development of most of upper Manhattan.

And as for DC, It's not a traditional grid but for this thread we will call it a grid, since it falls under my definition of an "urban layout." That was clearly, as you stated, planned out by L'Enfant as opposed to just thrown on the earth when it was needed.

I guess I don't understand your distinction between grids that were developed through sheer human progress and evolution and those that were actually thought out, planned and designed with a specific purpose. I think NYC and DC fall into the latter.

The only difference between NYC's grid system and those of other cities is the scale. By the time it reaches the Bronx it's back to the same old add-on as needed plan.

But tell you what, for argument's sake, let's say that NYC's grid plan was a complete plan from the get go (which it was) How exactly is it different from any other grid system? Its size. There are no mismatched breaks that are common in most other grids or even across the Hudson for that matter. Take a look at a map of say the Long Island Boroughs and you'll see what I mean by grid breaks. Maybe a better way to put it would be to say that they are oriented along a different axis but where they meet are the breaks I'm refering to. When we talk of a grand plan in this sense we're simply saying that NYC was designated as a grid before there was any development on the corresponding lands in question. Any city could have done this but the scale was never so large. Had the state government of the time simply decided to allow the lands to develop without this grand scheme you'd simply have had something more like you see in Queens for example. As far as the 'visionary' aspect of it is concerned, there again we are really only talking about the scale more than anything else. Paris for instance redeveloped vast tracts the same as NYC along the same grid system. What we're talking about here is what we think of as modern planning where zones are segregated from each other. This is essentially the main difference between Manhattan and say St. Louis where a factory might have been built right beside a nursery in an otherwise residential neighbourhood. The style of street layout is different of course from what we do now but otherwise the grand vision of New York is no different from any other city of the era. They might have included a plan to throw up some trees along some streets or designated a park here or there but the grid itself was hardly all that novel.

I was thinking about this the other day actually. It's really annoying that our cities continue to develop in this way. Even when they have an opportunity to build completely new neighborhoods, long and windy roads are built that may be aesthetically pretty but are functionally ineffective.
As I stated earlier, they are only inneffective based on what your goal is as a planner. Otherwise they do exactly what they were meant to do which is to preserve land values by keeping the nature of the neighbourhood immutable. That means there won't be any freeways being planned for your backyard if you live in one of the newer communities. Besides, as I also already said, the new style is a mix of the grid and garden style plans with the same grand scheme of self-contained communities.