Why grids are better for walking, in 1 simple graphic

[MolsonExport]

Originally Posted by muppet

But if you show them all the beauty they possess inside it'll give them a sense of pride to make it easier. Let the children's laughter remind us how we used to be. Oh.

I decided long ago, never to walk in anyone's shadow
If I fail, if I succeed
At least I live as I believe
No matter what they take from me
They can't take away my dignity

[jtown,man]

Originally Posted by Insoluble

Father of a small child here. We like shit to do at night too. Just because you have a kid doesn't mean you stop going to cafes, bars and restaurants. Babysitters exist for a reason.

I said that adults like to have fun too, even with kids. However, you probably put getting your kid in a good school over having a bar down the road.

The whole "cities are made for the young-adult" is exactly why Americans move the hell out of cities after they have kids. They move to the suburbs, and its not always the case that they think the burbs are just so great for families. Some do it because they see how bad cities can be for families.

And then people complain that people leave cities after they get married and have kids, while expousing hating kids. lol

[urbanlife]

Originally Posted by Jasonhouse

The real problem is that when the roads for cars end, the access for peds and cyclists almost always does too.

If at the end of each cul de sac has a pathway access to another road, it then turn those dead ends into through roads for pedestrians and bicyclers, which is how one makes an area more walkable. Though I do prefer some form of a grid over cul de sac streets.

[urbanlife]

Originally Posted by Fresh

Too much grid can be a bad thing. I was thinking about this the other day: Melbourne is far more griddy than Sydney and when i was down there walking around I noted that I was missing the impetus to explore that i get from a road curving around a bend in middle distance. Long straight roads with no visible end point seem to often rob the surroundings of intimacy.

Example: Two major nightlife/retail/cafe/hipster strips that are essentially the demographic mirror image of each other for each city.

King St, Newtown (Sydney)



Sydney Road, Brunswick (Melbourne)



Maybe it's a matter of personal taste but i find curves and twists to make for a much more rewarding urban experience.

Both images offer similar qualities, so for me I would say they both have an equal desirability.

[inSaeculaSaeculorum]

Is Your City's Street Grid Really a Grid?

...

In a new set of data visualizations, Seth Kadish from Portland, Oregon, compares the street grids of two dozen urban centers across the U.S. and Europe.

The graphs, which plot the orientations of every road in a county or city, reveal just how much that region conforms to a street grid. In each graph, the tallest bar indicates the direction that more roads point to than any other direction. To ensure rotational symmetry in the graphs, each road is plotted to run in both directions, regardless of whether they're actually one-way or two-way.

...

http://www.theatlanticcities.com/nei...our-city/8731/

[10023]

Yup, Chicago is a grid.

Odd that they only look at Manhattan for NYC, which is mostly a grid... other boroughs are not (at least not consistent ones).

[inSaeculaSaeculorum]

I'm not sure why, but I was suprised by charlotte. Is it that hilly that couldn't be more gridlike? Is it that old that it predates grid formats? Or is it just really suburban?

[hauntedheadnc]

Originally Posted by inSaeculaSaeculorum

I'm not sure why, but I was suprised by charlotte. Is it that hilly that couldn't be more gridlike? Is it that old that it predates grid formats? Or is it just really suburban?

The latter two. Charlotte's downtown areas is gridded, and every neighborhood that came afterward was developed on its own, without much thought to connectivity. The result was dozens of conflicting grids (where grids are present at all) superimposed over a knotted tangle of paved cow paths not unlike Boston -- but without the density or urbanity.

[Chicago103]

Originally Posted by Chicago103

Case in point of what I have just been talking about, people are conditioned to believe this, that urbanity is only about nightlife for young people. Urban walkability is good for people of any age from children to the elderly. Sure the walkable amenities are going to be different depending on one's age and family status but they are still there. For instance kids can walk to a park, to school to their favorite lemonade or ice cream stand, walk to their friends houses. etc. Young single adults as you pointed out can walk to various nightlife amenities. Mature adults can go for walks with their children to the places I mentioned above, walk to a family dinner or night out with their spouse. The elderly can get up early and walk to their favorite neighborhood family restaurant or bakery at the crack of dawn, walk to the pharmacy and just get exercise that keeps their joints in healthy shape that can lead to better quality of life and longer life expectancy, I know plenty of old people who live in the city who do just that. It makes no difference if you are a young single person who parties all night or are a 90 year old who is in bed at dusk, the streets are open 24/7 and they benefit anybody of any age who desires an urban lifestyle for whatever reasons. As far as "more girls at the bar" well I would argue that 21 year old attractive bombshells and 90 year old ethnic grandmothers are equally important to the vitality of city life, to say the city must be either/or instead of both/and is contrary to how urban life is supposed to be.

Originally Posted by jtown,man

I said that adults like to have fun too, even with kids. However, you probably put getting your kid in a good school over having a bar down the road.

The whole "cities are made for the young-adult" is exactly why Americans move the hell out of cities after they have kids. They move to the suburbs, and its not always the case that they think the burbs are just so great for families. Some do it because they see how bad cities can be for families.

And then people complain that people leave cities after they get married and have kids, while expousing hating kids. lol

The "cities are made for the young-adult" meme is largely post-modern technosis externality clusterfuck ex-suburbanite propaganda. There are MANY older people who live in our large cities just fine both anecdotally and statistically.

Sure I can name small pockets of the city of Chicago that are geared heavily towards the young and single (i.e. on choice blocks lined with bars/clubs in Wrigleyville/Boystown/Lincoln Park/Wicker Park, etc.) but that is maybe 1% of the city's entire land mass and low single digits of the population and even in the aforementioned neighborhoods you can avoid the most noisy/rowdy aspects by living even just a few blocks away, failing that move a few miles away to the flat/bungalow belt neighborhoods and there are many quiet family friendly areas (by most reasonable standards, maybe not by uber-helicopter suburban soccer mom standards).

The point is that people don't have to move miles and miles away to the suburbs to get away from 95% of the aspects of city life that are anathema to most children/parents/couples/older adults/introverts/non-party animal types and the remaining 5% is just the fact of life day to day human chaos that well rounded adults have to just learn to deal with. For the love of God just find a quieter/more laid back block or neighborhood, it isn't that fucking hard. Hell I am probably one of the most nightclub adverse introverts out there and yet people know I am also one of the most fanatic urbanists around, if that makes peoples heads explode with confusion than so be it.

[CCs77]

Originally Posted by TarHeelJ

Y

Maybe you just don't really know any children, but yours is an unpopular and kind of offensive opinion. I believe the children are our future...teach them well and let them lead the way.

Originally Posted by muppet

But if you show them all the beauty they possess inside it'll give them a sense of pride to make it easier. Let the children's laughter remind us how we used to be. Oh.

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

I decided long ago, never to walk in anyone's shadow
If I fail, if I succeed
At least I live as I believe
No matter what they take from me
They can't take away my dignity

Because the greeeeeeeeeeeatest love of all
is happening to meeeeeeeeeeeeee-eeeee
I found the greeeeeeatest love of all insiiiiide of me
the greatest love of aaaaaaaaaaall is easy to achiiiiiiiiiieve
leeeeeeearning to loooove yourself
it is the greatest loooove of aaaall...

[chris08876]

Originally Posted by CCs77

Because the greeeeeeeeeeeatest love of all
is happening to meeeeeeeeeeeeee-eeeee
I found the greeeeeeatest love of all insiiiiide of me
the greatest love of aaaaaaaaaaall is easy to achiiiiiiiiiieve
leeeeeeearning to loooove yourself
it is the greatest loooove of aaaall...

Did you just drop some acid?

[Double L]

I love Grids.

[ardecila]

Originally Posted by inSaeculaSaeculorum

I'm not sure why, but I was suprised by charlotte. Is it that hilly that couldn't be more gridlike? Is it that old that it predates grid formats? Or is it just really suburban?

Isn't there a mathematical problem here? Curving roads are (or can be) continuously differentiable; they don't have a single compass orientation but an infinite range of orientations.

Those rosette diagrams are only an approximation created by dividing curved roads into hypothetical straight segments. This is only a problem with curving roads, though - compare that to New Orleans, where you have a ton of arrow-straight streets on different orientations running perpendicular to the river, and even the "curved" streets like Tchoupitoulas are actually broken into straight segments.

The grid nature of the city also has nothing to do with walkability; Boston looks like Charlotte, and Houston looks like Chicago, but obviously these city pairs are nothing like each other.

Anyway, cool idea.

[aquablue]

Grids may be more efficient, but they are dull. NYC and Boston have some nice curved streets, but the areas are devoid of charm for some reason. I think it's because hey are in financial zones. London has curved streets and you can't deny the beauty of them, regent street, etc. Medieval towns etc, wonderful stuff. Small euro cities with messy curved streets bring all the people out walking. USA cities need to think of small zones where a medieval style grid could be developed as a pedestrian zone in new developments. People love wandering around them. They are human and charming. Grids are powerful and efficient and give the big city vibe, but unless the architecture is impressive, they are austere and unappealing. Walking around downtown DC is awful. A big grid of wide streets is unappealing for walking. Narrow streets are probably more relevant than curved for walking appeal, but I do think the cuved streets can give you that added ounce of charm, even if he architecture is ugly. It depends on what is on the street, what kind of functions at street level. Look at all those ugly german cities with curved pedestrianized shopping streets.. they are much nicer than a straight street would be. The curve reduces the effect of the ugly buildings.

[muppet]

Living in London I agree the medieval layout makes for great street theatre, but I do pine sometimes for one grand vista every know and then, like a Parisian boulevard or a New York canyon.

I think ideally it would be some grand, straight main arteries, over a network of winding lanes. Anyone know of a city like that?

[JonathanGRR]

Some Chinese cities still do, but they are becoming fewer with recent development trends.

[chris08876]

I think grids make for some awesome skyscraper density aesthetically if done right. Visually, IMO, density looks better on a grid. Chicago is a good example of a grid that works and the density looks beautiful from the street and air.

[aquablue]

Originally Posted by muppet

Living in London I agree the medieval layout makes for great street theatre, but I do pine sometimes for one grand vista every know and then, like a Parisian boulevard or a New York canyon.

I think ideally it would be some grand, straight main arteries, over a network of winding lanes. Anyone know of a city like that?

Paris maybe? Some parts are winding lanes.

London has plenty of straight streets though. The Mall, Picadilly, Oxford Street, etc.

[Wizened Variations]

Throughout human history, before industrial means of transportation, most cities when not under the thumb of an egotistical tyrant or conquering culture made road patterns that looked chaotic, with short lines of sight, and, numerous "nooks and crannies"

The biggest argument mathematically against the grid is the concept of short cuts. This can be best seen after a new park, with it's cement walkways put in place, over the course of a few years receives an overlay of pedestrian created paths. This idea is reflected in the ancient Middle Eastern cities where both the size of blocks are reduced, and, the paths simply are not straight.

Grids are imperial, top down structures. Look at the Roman cities in north Africa, the layout of ancient Kyoto in Japan, or the immense city of Chang'an, during the Tang Dynasty.

The grid makes property lines rigid and discourages informal short cuts and alleyways, both of which radically shorten pedestrian walk times.

[aquablue]

Originally Posted by Wizened Variations

Throughout human history, before industrial means of transportation, most cities when not under the thumb of an egotistical tyrant or conquering culture made road patterns that looked chaotic, with short lines of sight, and, numerous "nooks and crannies"

The biggest argument mathematically against the grid is the concept of short cuts. This can be best seen after a new park, with it's cement walkways put in place, over the course of a few years receives an overlay of pedestrian created paths. This idea is reflected in the ancient Middle Eastern cities where both the size of blocks are reduced, and, the paths simply are not straight.

Grids are imperial, top down structures. Look at the Roman cities in north Africa, the layout of ancient Kyoto in Japan, or the immense city of Chang'an, during the Tang Dynasty.

The grid makes property lines rigid and discourages informal short cuts and alleyways, both of which radically shorten pedestrian walk times.

Great buildings can make a grid beautiful. A grid can be hideous with austere buildings and wide streets. Look at the areas of Barcelona with the grid compared to Ottawa or downtown DC. IMO, the best city would be like London and Paris combined into one plan.

I think charm is more important than how efficient a street plan is for walking. Charm will always bring people out.