Having recently stumbled across a couple of rather nice planned towns, I thought it was time for this thread to ride again.
Behold Longview, Washington. Note the large central park, and the boulevard of Broadway Street, neatly anchored on each end with a hotel to the west and a hospital to the east. Back before such went out of fashion, both of these facilities would have stood to help garner a sense of civic pride in the town. If you tool around downtown Longview on Google Maps, it appears that the town that grew on this excellent plan is nice enough, even if not terribly impressive, but a good plan is good bones nonetheless. Longview definitely has a leg up on most towns.
Now behold Aiken, SC. Note that Aiken appears to have been designed, in 1835 no less, by a time-traveling SimCity aficionado. All the streets in the original part of town are less streets than they are boulevards with wide, planted medians. Where these boulevards cross it leaves a small square of land that in two places downtown has been given over to fountains, and in the rest of town has been given over to plantings, just like the medians themselves. Likely, this plan was the result of the prevailing belief at the time that mosquitoes could only fly so far before dying, and this was an attempt to build some malaria and yellow fever protection into the city plan. Columbia, SC's wide downtown streets were made so broad for that exact reason as well. Likely due in part to such a pleasant and shady city plan, Aiken became popular in the 1800's as a place for Northerners to spend the winter, and today enjoys a reputation as a pleasant and wealthy retirement town.
Interestingly enough, it would appear that a few cities in central Georgia had similar ideas to Aiken's in mind when designing their street plans. Note the parallel boulevards of Broad and Green streets in
downtown Augusta, as well as the boulevards of Mulberry, Poplar, and Third streets in
downtown Macon. With Augusta having been founded in 1736 with a couple of boulevards, perhaps having taken a cue from Savannah, established three years earlier, and with Macon coming along in 1809 with three boulevards, it would appear that by the time nearby Aiken, SC came along in 1835, it took the ideas of Augusta and Macon and just ran with them.