7 ms·

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

zoklet-enjoyer 4y ago
I like to be able to navigate to a location I've never been just by knowing the address. Grids with numbered streets and avenues are my favorite.
- barnabee 4y ago
  I see the appeal but it's not for me. If I need to get somewhere, I have maps and apps and GPS. Spending a day in a city with no agenda, meandering without a constant reminder of where I am relative to where I started or where I might someday be is much more interesting and rewarding IMO.
  - zoklet-enjoyer 4y ago
    Yeah that's fine for a vacation or a day off, but not practical day to day
davidw 4y ago
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/ 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 traffic down, but it can route around it. Take out an arterial in a typical suburb and it's a huge mess.
- barnabee 4y ago
  These things sound efficient and productive, but I don't think that makes them better.
  - davidw 4y ago
    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.
    - barnabee 4y ago
      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.
      - davidw 4y ago
        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.
- _dain_ 4y ago
  >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. That's an extreme example. "Non-grid" isn't a proper category, there are lots of ways of organizing streets that aren't regular grids. The important feature is permeability and alternative routes, not rectilinear structure as such. Sprawl suburb layout is bad because it goes out of its way to limit the number of alternate routes. Literally goes out of its way -- the roads twist and turn like a space-filling curve, often with all traffic funneled into just a few entrances/exits from the development onto the larger road network. That doesn't happen by accident, it's planned that way, to limit through-traffic that residents have to endure (meanwhile they impose through-traffic on everyone else who doesn't live in those developments). Whereas organic non-grid layouts still have plenty of redundancy. Check out the street pattern of London or Manchester or any British city that isn't Milton Keynes. The geometric advantage of grids is most acute at the smaller scales: they maximize the amount of area that is within walking distance of any given point. Public transport stops, shops, schools, etc.
- strken 4y ago
  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.
  - davidw 4y ago
    With a good grid, you could always close off some of the side streets to cars and let bikes and pedestrians through. With the big up front design... you better hope you got it right the first time because you are going to have more trouble changing it later. I think that's what I like about a grid. It doesn't have to be 100% right. You can change and shape and adapt it as needs be.
    - strken 4y ago
      With a big up-front layout you can still leave big enough gaps to put a road in and create a grid if you need, too: it goes both ways. Keep government ownership of pedestrian and bike paths with some nice trees on either side, and if you really need to you can put a road there later.
      - davidw 4y ago
        That's still a grid you're describing, in terms of the right-of-ways that have been reserved for the public. Just without roads built out on all of them. And yeah, that makes sense in some places.
bobbylarrybobby 4y ago
Agree, it's much more fun to just walk around when you can't really what lies ahead.

I like to be able to navigate to a location I've never been just by knowing the address. Grids with numbered streets and avenues are my favorite.

barnabee 4y ago
I see the appeal but it's not for me. If I need to get somewhere, I have maps and apps and GPS. Spending a day in a city with no agenda, meandering without a constant reminder of where I am relative to where I started or where I might someday be is much more interesting and rewarding IMO.
- zoklet-enjoyer 4y ago
  Yeah that's fine for a vacation or a day off, but not practical day to day

davidw 4y ago

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/ 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 traffic down, but it can route around it. Take out an arterial in a typical suburb and it's a huge mess.

barnabee 4y ago
These things sound efficient and productive, but I don't think that makes them better.
- davidw 4y ago
  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.
  - barnabee 4y ago
    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.
    - davidw 4y ago
      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.
_dain_ 4y ago
>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. That's an extreme example. "Non-grid" isn't a proper category, there are lots of ways of organizing streets that aren't regular grids. The important feature is permeability and alternative routes, not rectilinear structure as such. Sprawl suburb layout is bad because it goes out of its way to limit the number of alternate routes. Literally goes out of its way -- the roads twist and turn like a space-filling curve, often with all traffic funneled into just a few entrances/exits from the development onto the larger road network. That doesn't happen by accident, it's planned that way, to limit through-traffic that residents have to endure (meanwhile they impose through-traffic on everyone else who doesn't live in those developments). Whereas organic non-grid layouts still have plenty of redundancy. Check out the street pattern of London or Manchester or any British city that isn't Milton Keynes. The geometric advantage of grids is most acute at the smaller scales: they maximize the amount of area that is within walking distance of any given point. Public transport stops, shops, schools, etc.
strken 4y ago
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.
- davidw 4y ago
  With a good grid, you could always close off some of the side streets to cars and let bikes and pedestrians through. With the big up front design... you better hope you got it right the first time because you are going to have more trouble changing it later. I think that's what I like about a grid. It doesn't have to be 100% right. You can change and shape and adapt it as needs be.
  - strken 4y ago
    With a big up-front layout you can still leave big enough gaps to put a road in and create a grid if you need, too: it goes both ways. Keep government ownership of pedestrian and bike paths with some nice trees on either side, and if you really need to you can put a road there later.
    - davidw 4y ago
      That's still a grid you're describing, in terms of the right-of-ways that have been reserved for the public. Just without roads built out on all of them. And yeah, that makes sense in some places.

bobbylarrybobby 4y ago

Agree, it's much more fun to just walk around when you can't really what lies ahead.