Most subway maps in Europe are diagrams because the urban fabric of the city evolved in a chaotic patchwork fashion; you can't easily explain London on a diagra

Most subway maps in Europe are diagrams because the urban fabric of the city evolved in a chaotic patchwork fashion; you can't easily explain London on a diagram. The urban fabric of New York is a grid. New York developed on top of a diagram. This is such a crucial part of how you understand the city that it doesn't make sense to me that you wouldn't acknowledge this in a diagram which is explaining a system which is laid out to serve another diagram: the city grid. One of the fundamental principals of modernism is that form follows function; the second guys map is more functional.