Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Decline of the City Grid

economist.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 212 posts

Re: The Decline of the City Grid

#81

Post by gpvos »

brewdad wrote: post #50
tharkun__ wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see how it's incompatible with walking. I see the article mentions the same: If you are walking in a modern suburb, “You’re always going out of your way,” he says. It is not only people walking who have to take less direct routes. Buses are more effective when roads are in grids, allowing passengers to get anywhere with just one change. All that's required and normal in lots of Europe is for foot paths that c…

In America this is unacceptable both because suburban dwellers don't want to have people walking near their homes (invasion of privacy) and because developers would prefer to sell and build on as much land as possible. There's no money to be made on "public" land and it lowers the value of the land immediately adjacent to it.

You could make the roads less laughably wide.

Re: The Decline of the City Grid

#82

Post by flyinghamster »

nkrisc wrote: post #21
beej71 wrote: post #5

[freewheeling unplanned thinking-out-loud ahead] I like grids... but I'm not sure why. I live at the edge of the old grid section in my town. West of me, it turns into modern non-grid. Which I don't like. But do I not like it because of the lack of grid? Or because of the new modern wall-to-wall cookie-cutter construction? I look at an old organically-grown city and it's fascinating to me; its ties to the distant pas…

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 number (63rd, 71st, 79th, 87th, 95th, 103rd, 111th...).

The Chicago grid extends far beyond the city as well, with many suburbs using it. Will County also uses it for unincorporated areas, so it extends to 37500 South in Reed-Custer Township. There are still many suburbs that prefer to roll their own grids, though, and at least one (Harvey) that uses its own numbering on east/west streets and Chicago numbering on north/south.

Re: The Decline of the City Grid

#83

Post by gpvos »

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 yet another American pessimization. You won't find them in any European country.

Re: The Decline of the City Grid

#84

Post by ghaff »

lifefeed wrote: post #73
beej71 wrote: post #5

[freewheeling unplanned thinking-out-loud ahead] I like grids... but I'm not sure why. I live at the edge of the old grid section in my town. West of me, it turns into modern non-grid. Which I don't like. But do I not like it because of the lack of grid? Or because of the new modern wall-to-wall cookie-cutter construction? I look at an old organically-grown city and it's fascinating to me; its ties to the distant pas…

Tucked away in the middle of any urban planning article is a reference to Jane Jacob's "The Death and Life of Great American Cities". It's a great book that puts into words why certain neighborhoods cities feel alive and fit for humans. From mixed-use buildings to small blocks to sidewalks to parks to landmarks. I'm not going to say her insights are universal for everyone, but it might help you understand why you lik…

>I'm not going to say her insights are universal for everyone, but it might help you understand why you like that grid you like.

Jacobs is really interesting. My one caveat is that I think a lot of people who applaud her helping to block Moses' highway plans for Washington Square Park would probably be less enthusiastic about her support for what was effectively community self-determination. I suspect many would call it NIMBYism because I'm pretty sure making the West Village more affordable wasn't her top priority.

(That said, it was a very different environment in NYC in the 1950s than it became in the 70s/80s than it is today.)

Re: The Decline of the City Grid

#85

Post by ghaff »

akgerber wrote: post #10
beej71 wrote: post #5

[freewheeling unplanned thinking-out-loud ahead] I like grids... but I'm not sure why. I live at the edge of the old grid section in my town. West of me, it turns into modern non-grid. Which I don't like. But do I not like it because of the lack of grid? Or because of the new modern wall-to-wall cookie-cutter construction? I look at an old organically-grown city and it's fascinating to me; its ties to the distant pas…

Many old neighborhoods were originally literal wall-to-wall cookie-cutter construction, with Brooklyn brownstones being a prime example. My Brooklyn block was originally basically 4 different groups of identical buildings, with the new-law tenement I live in being substantially identical to 10 others it was built in a cluster with (except, now, to one that has had two stories added on top). Nevertheless I find the ar…

>with Brooklyn brownstones being a prime example

You see something similar in Boston's Back Bay which is a rare example of a grid in Boston because it was constructed on new landfill in the mid-1800s.

Re: The Decline of the City Grid

#86

Post by Kon-Peki »

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…

The Chicago grid system is the result of a 1908 renumbering and a 1913 street renaming. All of this after the grid was built.

It used to be every bit as unusual as Manhattan.

Re: The Decline of the City Grid

#87

Post by markfenton »

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 homeowners, but more power lies with the local residents, or developers who want to sell homes. It would be interesting to know if there is any research on whether there is any effect on crime from this sort of development.

Re: The Decline of the City Grid

#88

Post by ghaff »

spikeagally wrote: post #3
michaelt wrote: post #2

> In London cab drivers have to spend up to four years learning the street network before they can get around without a map. Chicago or New York taxi drivers can achieve much the same thing in a day. These days this is less about being able to navigate, and more a way to limit the number of taxi licenses without limiting the number of taxi licenses. Many other cities impose a numerical limit, but London has never had…

I think knowledge of the city is still much better than relying on GPS. The gap may have narrowed significantly but I'd still rather by driven by someone who knows the streets. One example I regularly encounter is Uber drivers following GPS down these extremely narrow (6ft I believe) bollard lined connecting roads. They are easily avoided if you know the area but every Uber driver will take them while we both hold ou…

Google Maps regularly makes poor decisions to save two minutes. I was reminded of this just yesterday driving in New England where we've had some snow here and there. It took me on a more direct route to a location than I usually take but I let it do its thing. Lots of turns on very secondary roads some of which had some drifting and ice on the road. Nothing very bad but the more main route coming back was definitely better.

Re: The Decline of the City Grid

#89

Post by strken »

davidw wrote: post #24
barnabee wrote: post #20

I like a city I can get lost in. Grids seem like an anti-pattern to me.

Go to Venice, Italy if you want to get lost. Grids are the best way to lay out a city so you don't end up with ridiculous burbs like this where it's a 1.5 mile walk between adjacent lots. https://bendyimby.com/2018/03/03/street-grids/ There are far worse examples of that elsewhere in the country. Grids are also very robust to interruptions - like you remove an intersection (a crash, sewer work, whatever) and it slows…

I think there's a middle ground. If you look examples of walkable suburbs (Houten from one of the other replies, the north of Canberra in Australia) they don't just shove cul-de-sacs everywhere with no thought. Canberra in particular uses looping streets rather than dead ends, runs footpaths between houses at the midpoint of many loops so pedestrians and cyclists can move like they're in a grid, and doesn't have multiple levels of branching dead-end streets like your example.

You can still end up with a long drive between adjacent blocks, but the walk or ride should be much shorter.

Re: The Decline of the City Grid

#90

Post by robotresearcher »

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.

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.
Post reply on HN