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  #21  
Old Posted May 28, 2018, 4:19 PM
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there is the 1300 acre 1876 forest park and the smaller parks which emulate the big one - which was a grand planning gesture and a lot of neighborhood level things like new orleans style neutral ground parks, but overall the city was shaped by individual developers and the original spanish and french land grants. neighborhoods, streets, and the essential shape of the city (and county since they were all once one) overall is HIGHLY influenced by this.



britannica.com

the river also had an impact in a similar way to new orleans. and yet again like new orleans, st. louis swallowed other 18th/19th century towns on the river and incorporated them into the street grid...you can see the original town grids at different angles below. st. louis often looked to new orleans for civic development queues. one of the big ones is carondelet (which is also a street in new orleans) which is further downriver off the map below.


wikipedia.com
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  #22  
Old Posted May 28, 2018, 4:20 PM
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And just to expand on the idea that grids can actually break down...

We haven't seen very much of this in the US because our history is so relatively young, and politically stable. But there are plenty of examples of this in Europe.

The Romans decided on grid-based plans for many of their settlements. Many of these can still be seen, and others have broken down much further.

The prototypical Roman plan was based on an Y and X axis, known as the Cardo and Decumanus.


This image shows the location of the original Roman settlement within the city center of Florence, Italy.


But if you look closely, you can see that the original Roman grid has become distorted at the level of the individual city block. And in other locations, this break down has been so extreme that it is hard to make out the original grid at all.
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  #23  
Old Posted May 28, 2018, 8:40 PM
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I've always loved this drawing - but it's also always confused the hell out of me. I had originally thought that plaza and the roads radiating out of it were canals or something, but obviously that's not the case. So what's the deal with the wet, wavy looking ground? Just an artistic flourish to convey rain-slicked streets?
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  #24  
Old Posted May 28, 2018, 9:13 PM
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The original 1788 city plan for "Torento Harbour", with a common in the centre and a strict geometric grid of blocks radiating outwards:




What was actually built was a little more haphazard:




Going back to mr1138's point though, as in most places there was really a confluence of competing planning typologies going on rather than one unifying vision. Most of the older streets are based on earlier surveys with lots laid out perpendicular to the lake, which eventually met up with areas later surveyed at a different angle. Some of the roads follow ravines, hills, the lake or other geographic features; some were just built by private developers or through subdivided lots as needed; and some of the windier streets were well-worn native trading routes eventually paved and brought into the municipal road system.

In the late 1800s and early 1900s there were some attempt at carving grand, city beautiful-type boulevards and plazas through the built-up grid, but few of them ever ended up materializing








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  #25  
Old Posted Jun 9, 2018, 6:41 PM
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city with a lot of trains
new thread. that old thread is gone
https://forum.skyscraperpage.com/sho...d.php?t=239987

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  #26  
Old Posted Apr 18, 2019, 2:03 PM
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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.
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  #27  
Old Posted Apr 18, 2019, 5:21 PM
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A bit of eye candy if you're willing to click and take a look...

Savannah, Georgia -- Perhaps the best city plan in America, and a contender for best in the world, in terms of the human and urban scale and the integration of greenery into the streetscape.

Raleigh, NC -- A city that had good intentions and a decent, if not especially creative, plan. Note that the old Capitol is the literal heart of a city that was founded explicitly to be the new capital of North Carolina. Note that the central capitol square was joined by four other civic spaces at one time... Nash Square, Moore Square, the square given over to the governor's mansion, and one that was lost to a collection of government buildings. Note that the main street of downtown Raleigh, Fayetteville Street, is anchored at either end, with the capitol to the north and the performing arts center to the south. And note the new government complex to the north of the old capitol. The Legislative Building, which is the modern capitol building, and the Halifax Mall, bordered by dull modern buildings... but the ideas behind the urban form were sound, even if the execution ended up lacking. This is a solid plan, and it's a shame the city did not continue the plan as it grew.
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  #28  
Old Posted Apr 18, 2019, 5:36 PM
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New Plymouth, Idaho (just outside of Boise) was designed in the 1890's by the Plymouth Society of Chicago.




it hasn't grown much since its founding, though being part of the Boise metro, it could become a bedroom community at some point:

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  #29  
Old Posted Apr 18, 2019, 6:03 PM
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  #30  
Old Posted Apr 18, 2019, 9:42 PM
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Very cool thread. Most of LA is based on a grid but due to the topography of our area, doesn't always stick to one. Also, a large portion of the basin was built around railways back in the day.

To me, the most fascinating and exciting neighborhoods are the ones that weren't planned. Bostons haphazardness, NYC's village, LA's arts district area.. I love the weirdness and non conformity, even though i crave the orderliness in pretty much every other aspect of my life
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  #31  
Old Posted Apr 22, 2019, 2:22 PM
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  #32  
Old Posted Apr 22, 2019, 6:51 PM
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One of America's best designed cities, anyway

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  #33  
Old Posted Apr 23, 2019, 4:19 AM
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Detroit had multiple 'plans' you could say.

Video Link


tl;dr

1. Ribbon farm planning makes many streets lead to the water while a handful of roads that parallel to the river are more broken up.

2. Spoke-and-wheel pattern based on old Indian trails.

3. Incomplete downtown plan was originally intended to cover the whole city.

4. Northwest Ordinance creates 1 square mile blocks in yet undeveloped areas of the city.

4a. In the city and some inner-ring suburbs, the 1 square miles are filled with grid-iron streets. Farther out there's more typical planned suburban subdivisions
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  #34  
Old Posted Apr 24, 2019, 7:37 PM
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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.
I happened to think to take a look at Columbus, Georgia today to see if it fell in line with the boulevard action in Macon and Augusta... and it does! Front Avenue, Broadway, and 1st Avenue are all boulevards in the downtown area in whole or in part. Further along, it would appear that Veterans Parkway and 6th Avenue make a stab at it. This means that all of Georgia's second-tier cities were developed on plans, and that three of them grew on similar plans. That's rather striking and, I would think, rather unusual.
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  #35  
Old Posted Apr 24, 2019, 7:48 PM
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And when city plans go awry...?

The Arkansas State Capitol in Little Rock doesn't line up with the street grid, although that was likely the original intent.

Meanwhile in Philadelphia, Dilworth Park throws off the symmetry of the city hall square just enough to be really irritating to anyone who would care about such things. (It's worse in the satellite view, but you really have to look hard at it.) It would be more tolerable if the tower faced to the west because then you could call the park city hall's front yard or something, but it doesn't. The tower is oriented to the north, which makes Dilworth Park seems like some weird scrap of side yard that no one knew what to do with.
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"To sustain the life of a large, modern city in this cloying, clinging heat is an amazing achievement. It is no wonder that the white men and women in Greenville walk with a slow, dragging pride, as if they had taken up a challenge and intended to defy it without end." -- Rebecca West for The New Yorker, 1947

Last edited by hauntedheadnc; Apr 24, 2019 at 8:03 PM.
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  #36  
Old Posted Apr 24, 2019, 8:00 PM
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And when city plans go awry...?

The Arkansas State Capitol in Little Rock doesn't line up with the street grid, although that was likely the original intent.
Wtf. It looks like it doesn't even line up with the cardinal directions. The whole street grid on the west side of town looks like a surveying mistake and they just decided to go with it. Honestly I would just start over at this point.
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  #37  
Old Posted Apr 24, 2019, 8:08 PM
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And when city plans go awry...?

those are called "suburbs."

actually, you bring up a good point. Milwaukee has a fascinating story about why it's downtown grid doesn't line up:




from Wikipedia:

Quote:
The area that is now the city of Milwaukee was originally home to three settlements: Solomon Juneau's Juneautown, founded on the east side of the Milwaukee River in 1818; Byron Kilbourn's Kilbourntown on the west side of the river, founded in 1834; and Walker's Point to the south, founded by George H. Walker also in 1834

The early history of Milwaukee was marked by the rivalry between Juneautown and Kilbourntown, mostly due to the actions of Byron Kilbourn. Kilbourn had been trying to isolate Juneautown to make it more dependent on Kilbourntown. For example, when he laid out his street grid in 1835, he paid no attention to the existing street layout of Juneautown. Kilbourn's maps showed Juneautown as a blank space, and when steamers delivered goods to Kilbourn's west side docks, he ordered the captains to tell passengers that Juneautown was an Indian trading post.

eventually, bridges were built (and blown up) during the "Bridge War", but peace prevailed and downtown now has three distinct grids and bridges at various angles.
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  #38  
Old Posted Apr 24, 2019, 8:11 PM
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back on topic, Madison, WI, has a nice, organized street plan on a narrow isthmus that originally consisted of low hills and muddy marshlands:

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  #39  
Old Posted Apr 24, 2019, 8:23 PM
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actually, you bring up a good point. Milwaukee has a fascinating story about why it's downtown grid doesn't line up:
Considering the original rivalry between those two parts of town, it's interesting to see that one side ended up with the city hall and the other side ended up with the county courthouse.
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  #40  
Old Posted Apr 26, 2019, 2:45 AM
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Considering the original rivalry between those two parts of town, it's interesting to see that one side ended up with the city hall and the other side ended up with the county courthouse.
Milwaukee's first two courthouses were on the east side along with city hall. The current courthouse was built on the west side, only after significant east vs. west bickering among the community...and that was a good 7-8 decades after the rivalries of pioneer times!
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