Why does New Orleans have such a weird layout?

[Private Dick]

Originally Posted by ardecila

No, that's exactly how it happened. The original city was the French Quarter, with land both upriver and downriver divided into plantations based on the long lot system. Due to the river's curvature the long lots tended to more wedge-shaped than rectangular. As the city grew and expanded, the city grid was platted into the adjacent plantations by licensed surveyors that all generally respected the grid, but added their own flourishes (parks, market squares, wide boulevards, etc).

Generally the land sloped downward and got more marshy the further you got from the river, so the practical limit of the long lot occurred at a line 40 arpents back from the river (1.5 miles), and landowners dug a canal and levee at this line to prevent the occasional flooding of the higher ground. In St. Bernard Parish, this is still the edge of urbanization. In New Orleans, that line is now Claiborne Avenue and lands to the lake side of Claiborne were drained and settled in the 20th century.

The French Quarter grid was established as a grid. It was not platted out of plantations. While it's true that the grid eventually expanded to encompass plantations up and down river as the "suburban" faubourgs developed, New Orleans was not laid out on the "long lot" system as was displayed in that map of Green Bay.

[ThePhun1]

Originally Posted by Cirrus

And starting in about 1950 with the rise of suburbs, it's really worse than that. Today's New Orleans urbanized area ranks 49th in the US. It's MSA is 45th. What was once America's 3rd largest city is now struggling to stay in the top 50.

There are a number of places like that. It just comes and goes with the territory. Place rise and fall in prominence.