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The Decline of the City Grid

economist.com

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Re: The Decline of the City Grid

#91

Post by freeqaz »

cperciva wrote: post #51
freeqaz wrote: post #48

I recently visited Vancouver, BC (Canada) and I was blown away by their urban development planning. They have tons of density, but the city doesn't look dystopian because they've mixed different styles of building well. What this manifests in reality is a less car-dependent city that's extremely walkable (they also have amazing walking paths all over). Overall, I just found the experience to be amazing in comparison…

I'm guessing you were downtown? From roughly 15th south -- the majority of the city -- pretty much all you get is suburban wasteland of detached homes.

Yeah, it was downtown. But compared to SF or Seattles "downtown", it was absolutely bustling even at 2am in December. That's what blew my mind. (It's a ghost town in most cities because it's all commercial -- no mixed use tall buildings)

Re: The Decline of the City Grid

#92

Post by Kon-Peki »

flyinghamster wrote: post #82
nkrisc wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've inspired me as well to ramble about why grids are great. Growing up in Chicago, I have a deep love of the grid. It made sense, it made navigation easy. It made addresses have real meaning . Take the address of the Vic Theater, for example: 3145 N Sheffield. It tells you just about everything you need to know. It tells you that Sheffield is a North/South street. Because it's an odd number it tells you the build…

> Just in time edit: It was pointed that I forgot one of the most important things: the numbering system encodes distance as well. Every 100 on the grid, or one full block, is 1/8 of a mile. Except for the first three miles south of Madison St., which are 1200 S (Roosevelt Rd.), 2200 S (Cermak Rd.), and 3100 S (31st St.) - which also gives the numbered streets southward their pattern of having each mile being an odd…

North Ave and Roosevelt Rd, as named, extend all the way west from the lake to the Kane County line. But the roads themselves go all the way to Ogle County - 2/3 of the way to Iowa. North Ave ends at a T-junction in the middle of corn fields, while Roosevelt ends kind of unceremoniously at a messed up intersection at a baseball field in Rochelle.

Re: The Decline of the City Grid

#93

Post by freeqaz »

robotresearcher wrote: post #90
cperciva wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm guessing you were downtown? From roughly 15th south -- the majority of the city -- pretty much all you get is suburban wasteland of detached homes.

There are lumps of density around many of the SkyTrain stops. Some of the stops used to be in the middle of nowhere, then gradually developers made them into little dense mini-metros.

I found the "clumps of density" fascinating because it seems like the NIMBY culture in SF/Seattle prevents that from happening. You simply cannot build more than 3-4 stories anywhere except downtown.

There are some small exceptions to this, but I can't think of any buildings more than ~7 stories that are North of downtown Seattle that have been built in the last 50 years. It's just not a part of the culture here and it blew my mind to see this succeeding in Vancouver.

Different priorities, I guess!

Re: The Decline of the City Grid

#94

Post by ghaff »

kkfx wrote: post #65
marcosdumay wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, cities are still growing, and people are still concentrating on fewer and fewer of them... So I'd say that any call for they losing their purpose is way too precipitated. I do agree we seem to be moving on that direction. But we are surely not there.

If you wait to see people fleeing it's way too late to act. Just imaging how many DECADES would be needed to design and built a new "modern polis", adapted to our present and future needs, so renewables, flying logistic, much more rails for heavy packages, future flying "cars" and so far. Of course this meanwhile the climate change push people a bit northern/southern BUT the need of renewables and low energy consumpt…

Things do shift over long enough time horizons. 25 years or so ago quite a few of the cities we generally consider "elite" today were still losing population.

Re: The Decline of the City Grid

#95

Post by madcaptenor »

kgermino wrote: post #68
dionidium wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It made addresses have real meaning. In the spirit of this observation, here are some fun ways to place addresses in (some of) Manhattan. - First of all, "evens go east," so 20th St runs to the East and 21st to the West (14th, 23rd, 34th, 42nd, 57th, and 59th are the primary two-way, E/W thoroughfares (I think you just have to memorize those, but note that they line up with the stops on many of the N/S subway lines…

> Street numbers pivot on 5th Ave and increase in each direction from there, so if you know the street number, you know which two avenues it's between. For example, when I lived at 4xx W 45th St, that was between 9th and 10th, which can be deduced from the first number of the address added to 5 (5 + 4 = 9, so the address is West of 9th). As a logic-minded person used to the Chicago system, this kind of thing drives m…

I share your complaints about Manhattan. I guess when they did Manhattan they had figured out "numbered streets are good" but not "having the addresses work nicely with the numbered streets are good". By the time they put addresses on the streets in Queens they did what you want them to.

Re: The Decline of the City Grid

#96

Post by davidw »

barnabee wrote: post #42
davidw wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the end of the day, it's better for people, too, to live in a place that can grow and adapt, where they can walk to a coffee shop, or ride their bikes on a quieter side street instead of being shunted into a nasty collector street with deadly 40mph traffic.

I feel like London, for example (along with many other European cities), achieves this goal as well or better than any rigidly grid based city I’ve ever visited.

Ah, I see where you're coming from. Someplace like London has a core that was laid out as a grid by the Romans (Londinium) and then that sort of medieval 'hodge podge' that grows out organically. Still very human oriented, if a bit more confusing, and definitely 'interesting'. I lived in Padova, Italy for many years, which has a similar pattern, albeit on a smaller scale. It's pretty nice, although a grid is still probably more convenient for a lot of day to day life things.

Re: The Decline of the City Grid

#97

Post by bernawil »

bobthepanda wrote: post #49
bernawil wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's the other way around. Grids are made for cars. And buses, trucks (garbage trucks too), semis. They are ok at moving vehicles from houses to the highway, but you can walk them too. Non-grids are for people and (few) cars. They are intentionally designed to discourage non-residents from driving through them. They optimize for selling the maximum amount of land and delivering the minimum conveniently drivable surfa…

I would disagree. Grids are bad for cars because four way stops are really inefficient at processing them. You'll notice in American suburban planning that there are as few four-way stops as possible inside a subdivision. Non-grids extend the distance of a lot of trips and are thus hostile to slower non-motorized users. Driving an extra 500m is not a big deal for a car but is an additional several minutes for slower…

> four-way stops are really inefficient at processing them

This is a non-issue. Where I'm from, grid neighbourhoods are the norm and stop signs are not a thing. First, the grid spreads out traffic inside it. Then, you're supposed to drive at around 35 km/h. Last, narrower/streets with more traffic tend to be one way. Most of the driving takes place at arteries, still part of the grid. Those have semaphores.

Also, grids add A TON of public street parking. Get off your arterial road close to your destination and into the neighbourhood and look for parking. That also means there's street and sidewalk space for bus stops and space for laying out utilities (electric, water and sewers).

What I'm trying to say is that grids are meant for cars among all the other things. The thing about non-grids is they are upscale: less public surface means bigger lots and worse transportation means leans non-residents around.

Re: The Decline of the City Grid

#98

Post by bcrosby95 »

markfenton wrote: post #87
gpvos wrote: post #75

A thing about North-American cul-de-sac suburbs that I don't understand is why there are no footpaths to take shortcuts between the dead-end streets. That would make them much less hostile to pedestrians, would allow you to visit neighbours more easily, and it seems to me that you don't lose anything. Is it just an oversight or is there some reason for that? It should even increase social safety: always an escape rou…

There is a view held by some that they actually decrease safety by providing somewhere for undesirables to loiter, or a means of escape after committing crime, or simply attract more foot traffic to an area than a cul-de-sac therfore increasing the chance of opportunistic crime. I suspect this is a situation where the benefits of the shortcuts to society may be greater than the possible downsides to the nearby homeow…

We have a creek trail at the end of our cul-de-sac, and it definitely has been used by people who walk up and down neighborhoods to check for open cars. It's especially useful in the day of home security cameras - people that drive tend to get their license plate lifted.

That said, I wouldn't trade it for that kinda "safety". I'd rather just lock my car or not leave valuables in it. Being able to take my kids for a walk and actually do something without a car is more valuable.

Re: The Decline of the City Grid

#99

Post by ghaff »

gpvos wrote: post #83
bobthepanda wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would disagree. Grids are bad for cars because four way stops are really inefficient at processing them. You'll notice in American suburban planning that there are as few four-way stops as possible inside a subdivision. Non-grids extend the distance of a lot of trips and are thus hostile to slower non-motorized users. Driving an extra 500m is not a big deal for a car but is an additional several minutes for slower…

Four-way stops are yet another American pessimization. You won't find them in any European country.

Not sure why. In low traffic situations in both directions, it seems it's probably safer to have everyone to have everyone stop rather than have traffic in one direction blast through.

Re: The Decline of the City Grid

#100

Post by madcaptenor »

dredmorbius wrote: post #78
nkrisc wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've inspired me as well to ramble about why grids are great. Growing up in Chicago, I have a deep love of the grid. It made sense, it made navigation easy. It made addresses have real meaning . Take the address of the Vic Theater, for example: 3145 N Sheffield. It tells you just about everything you need to know. It tells you that Sheffield is a North/South street. Because it's an odd number it tells you the build…

Try living, working, or shopping on Peachtree in Atlanta sometime.

Which one?

Seriously, a few days ago I actually did a four-mile drive that at one point had me take Peachtree Industrial Boulevard to North Peachtree Road to Peachtree Road, and ended on New Peachtree Road. I didn't do this because I wanted to drive on lots of roads named Peachtree, I just wanted some ma po tofu.

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