tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3300947294999806492.post6061624688561794014..comments2023-11-22T05:26:44.399-05:00Comments on Crossing the Lines: Understanding the GridSteve Stofkahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14825368520377993845noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3300947294999806492.post-13942597203554676392011-06-26T23:58:46.923-04:002011-06-26T23:58:46.923-04:00Steve -- I really like that urban growth concept. ...Steve -- I really like that urban growth concept. A Google maps planning experiment, centered on some small rural town with existing pikes and country roads, might really flesh out the paradigm in terms of building a city around the existing roads and terrain, rather than the "clean slate" grid approach.Charlie Gardnerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07317335121565650040noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3300947294999806492.post-4280589975949264152011-06-23T13:57:55.245-04:002011-06-23T13:57:55.245-04:00Maybe my initial comment was too glib. I grew up i...Maybe my initial comment was too glib. I grew up in/near Milwaukee, and I thought the grid system was terrific. It was easy to navigate, the abundance of nearby, parallel streets allowed for alternate routings (if one street was blocked, or if you wanted to ride your bike on a calmer street, etc), and the roads connected you to your surroundings (instead of isolating you from them).<br /><br />Compare that to, say the Main Line. Only three roads get you anywhere: Lancaster, Conestoga/County Line/Haverford, and Montgomery. Good luck trying to bike or walk anywhere. I appreciate that terrain plays a role, but still. <br /><br />A little while ago I lived in Raleigh (no grid) and outside of the city center it was impossible to navigate at night unless you knew your route cold -- random streets at irregular spacings and strange angles. None of them went through, so if you missed a turn you couldn't just take the next one. Dreadful.uwes98https://www.blogger.com/profile/09851182387500129992noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3300947294999806492.post-29460456034876432542011-06-23T12:08:51.750-04:002011-06-23T12:08:51.750-04:00Perhaps. In a way, L'Enfant's Washington m...Perhaps. In a way, L'Enfant's Washington may be the most well-designed grid, since the whole construct is done in such a way that the major thoroughfares cut through the primary grid, rather than structure it. But the sheer prevalence of such thoroughfares--far more than the more naturally-evolved Philadelphia grid--is certainly a Baroque excess.<br /><br />If I were designing a new city, I would basically have the major streets be the pikes that already serve the area and other important streets be laid out along existing farmland boundaries. Then the next step would be to turn the farm lanes (all farms have internal access lanes) into neighborhood thoroughfares, and finally branch the street and lot network off that. In this paradigm, the pike would be a 60-80 ft. complete street, the wider boundary roads and converted access roads about 30 ft., complete or sharrowed, and the neighborhood streets would be 15-20 ft. naked streets. Approximately 70% of the network would be 20 ft. or less, 20% 30-50 ft., and 10% 60 ft. or more.<br /><br />Alternatively, without the starting point farms offer, a sophisticated grid can have the same function, as long as the complete streets are far enough apart, the subdivisions the same size as traditional farms (~40 acres), and the internal street network again using a highly-interconnected naked streets (mews) network transected by wider thoroughfares. The ruling grid in Phoenix would be a perfect starting-out point for such a mode of design--but instead the subdivisions there were all filled with, well, subdivisions. Such opportunity wasted.Steve Stofkahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14825368520377993845noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3300947294999806492.post-72426868633271575912011-06-23T11:49:55.446-04:002011-06-23T11:49:55.446-04:00In entry 111 on Recivilization ("the american...In entry 111 on Recivilization ("the american grid"), there is at least a hint of an answer this question about the grid:<br /><br />"In all the older towns, commercial pressure cheapened the Baroque or medieval plans left from the original colonies. Throughout history, from Hippodamus to William Penn, grids had been only the background to sophisticated yet simple design systems, where amenity and practicality were held in a satisfying balance. Now, in the New Secular Order, continuity with the past was forsaken; shorn of its embellishments, its open spaces, boulevards and focal points, the grid became a radically new type of plan, one devoted to no finer purpose than facilitating speculation in city land, and religiously excluding anything that might hinder speculation."<br /><br />So maybe for the author the Baroque refinement of the basic rectangular plan does represent the ideal form of the grid -- it is simply a grid that takes account of amenity. Boulevards and focal points break the monotony. At least that's the way I am reading it, right or wrong.Charlie Gardnerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07317335121565650040noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3300947294999806492.post-15231410900962495612011-06-23T10:48:43.380-04:002011-06-23T10:48:43.380-04:00Charlie: I wasn't disputing this--what I was t...Charlie: I wasn't disputing this--what I was taking issue with is the fact that Recivilization has chapters on how to do it right in the medieval (New England) and Baroque (Southern) styles...but not with a grid. Philadelphia manages to get it right, mainly because the irregular streets predate the grid's existence, but many other cities fail to.<br /><br />My thesis is that grids can produce satisfying results, if the right methods are used, just as any other method of city-building can. But to do so, they can't be the be-all-end-all, and in fact, they need to have areas where the grid changes or simply breaks down. Monotony is the problem.Steve Stofkahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14825368520377993845noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3300947294999806492.post-19014647359688808652011-06-23T00:40:37.191-04:002011-06-23T00:40:37.191-04:00Steve -- my objection isn't to the grid itself...Steve -- my objection isn't to the grid itself, but to inflexibility and absolute uniformity in any plan, whether orthogonal, radial or any other type.<br /><br />If the grid does not require those outcomes, it does at least encourage them. A grid has no natural end point, and few gridded cities really contemplated interior block space being subdivided by streets beyond perhaps a single central alleyway. Although a thoughtful planner can produce an effective irregular grid (I've seen good examples from New Urbanist developments), it's far easier to simply default to mindless repetition of standard-sized blocks on standard-width streets, ad infinitum. This is, I think, why so many "bad" grids were produced in 19th century America -- it wasn't simply misfortune. <br /><br />One possible alternative is to imagine a type of planning that is neither all-encompassing nor totally hands-off, which plans certain routes but intentionally leaves room for others to fill in through incremental growth. From what I've read, a similar system guided the development of New York through the mid-18th century, and probably many other cities of that era. It would, however, involve abandonment of the grid so far as "grid" is taken to represent the idea that the planner ought to be responsible for laying out all streets in a town.Charlie Gardnerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07317335121565650040noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3300947294999806492.post-9772912223093052822011-06-22T14:49:09.068-04:002011-06-22T14:49:09.068-04:00What's not to like about grids?What's not to like about grids?uwes98https://www.blogger.com/profile/09851182387500129992noreply@blogger.com