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Carriages were extremely rare and cities were not built to accommodate them until the rise of the coach in the 16th century. Carriages are not much longer than
by lmm 2y ago
Carriages were extremely rare and cities were not built to accommodate them until the rise of the coach in the 16th century.
Carriages are not much longer than cars, and they're significantly narrower and articulated in the middle. The simplistic model of "length" breaks down when you want to compare two things of similar size, but it's good enough when we're comparing two things where one is 10x the size of the other.
If you visit old cities in Europe and the Middle East you'll definitely see a difference in size and layout between cities that were built for horses (not even necessarily for carriages, just pack-horses) and cities that weren't. And then you'll see another big shift if you go to e.g. South Africa where all the cities were built in the post-coach era.