American reacts to Why European Cities are Insanely Well Designed

[@Asa...S]

4:55 "This can be seen all across Europe, in cities such as Paris and Denmark" That video was definitely made by an American...

[@ainikih9532]

I was just about to question this. Denmark makes for a lovely city, though! 😂

[@foobar1500]

Something is rotten in the city of Denmark, or how did Shakespeare put it?

[@ainikih9532]

@@foobar1500 my bad... I meant to pick that up before I left 🙄

[@josteingravvik2381]

Ahh yes, the city of Denmark on the northern fringes of the country of Europe !!! 😆😅🤣

[@godlesspagan459]

​@foobar1500 "rotten in the state of Denmark"

[@MarijnvdSterre]

This guy doesn't seem to know much about European cities. Would not recommend the video.

[@homesteadlegion4419]

Yeah its pretty bad, nobody "designed" our cities to be radial, that is just how they grow naturally around the old center because everyone wants to be as close to the important parts near the center as possible if they have the space. Depending on the geography it might even not be radial at all, many of the river cities are basically a thick line or a weird tear drop in shape. Also some of his examples literally started life as a grit like london and paris with both of them tracing their modern roots back to the romans.

[@sharonmartin4036]

Just BTW, someone should tell this guy (not Ryan, the guy talking on the video) that Denmark is a country, not a city, and Sydney is not in Europe. Wow!

[@Xiroi87]

Ikr. I was shocked to hear that.

[@neilbarton7216]

It is a great pity that the robot that is speaking cannot obviously have any brains. The pronunciation in so many videos nowadays is appalling and shows lack of education

[@berndbrotify]

Sure, Sydney is in Europe: It's half a village in France: 49°25'24.0"N 4°06'09.0"E

[@verttikoo2052]

Isn’t Sydney in Canada?

[@verttikoo2052]

🤭

[@LoboMarone]

beside the denmark fauxpas: what is this guy talking about? radial cities are NOT norm in europe. most (not all) city`s shapes are characterized by the old, mostly removed city walls, so they are circular around a centre.

[@herrbonk3635]

And the grid structure blaimed on cars is a fashion from the 1600s (inheried from the era before christ). The car society that came in the 1930s instead destroyed much of this grid structure, replacing it with highways or motorways or autostradas straight trough many historical european city centers.

[@ImagineMySurprise510]

Using Paris as an example of European street design was not representative of Europe in general since it was demolished and rebuilt to reflect a certain design philosophy. Many European cities grew up from ancient times when herding cattle through the streets was a thing, so the paths of least resistance dictated where the streets became established.

[@saladspinner3200]

Many European cities Were redesigned in the example of Paris.

[@MrPolisse]

and paris sucks any person living there will tell you how bad it is designed. point to america on this one

[@Muck006]

@@saladspinner3200 Name some ... Paris was redesigned under Haussmann with BROAD STRAIGHT BOULEVARDS and a CAVALRY BARRACKS in each of them to be able to prevent a "citizen protest" like 1848 / to easily trample those unruly peasants. In Berlin they didnt do that and had one "demolishing for a street" bit, the "Durchbruch durch die Ministergärten". London? Bah, they dont have wide roads anywhere. Rome? Hills, hills everywhere ... and an ANCIENT city plan.

[@Soken50]

Much of Europe suffered great fires, bombings, authoritarian ego projects so many cities do indeed have a layout similar to Paris. Although there are some notable exceptions like Barcelona's Superblocks which are a hybrid of the US grid and European walkable neighborhoods.

[@manub.3847]

@@Soken50 Even in cities that received new, wide streets during reconstruction, the old structure of the market and church squares, as well as the old city walls/ramparts, can still be seen in many places in aerial photographs/satellite images. European cities in particular were created by incorporating the surrounding small towns and villages (now districts). And in these aerial photographs, you often can't even make out "city boundaries" anymore, because the actual city merges directly into surrounding villages. Incidentally, today's streets often have names that recall their former use, which in some cases is over 1000 years old.

[@WryNose]

We didn't really designed our cities, they just kinda grew bigger.

[@stjepan4444]

It's completely opposite

[@louisl2829]

​@@stjepan4444 Both at the same time

[@jmi5969]

@@louisl2829 Precisely. The cities that were actually *designed*, with very little old-time legacy remaining - from Barcelona to Milton Keynes - often have picture-perfect grid systems.

[@alexanderkupke920]

Both is true, some just have grown and the core old city is a mess by today's standards and you can easily recognize what kind of vehicles those streets where designed for. Others, or part of others are designed. Also it depends on the "when" I think certain planing with esthetics in mind for the layout came up in the 18th century. During the last century here as well cars became more prominent and planing evolved around where to get by car. The radial planing was based on the center being connected to neighboring cities directly and other streets connecting those, like a spiderweb. Add contours of the geography, rivers etc and you get the lovely chaos we know. Another reason why European cities are more walkable, we never introduced as strict zoning creating the huge suburbs we all see as US residential areas, all with single, one or at most two story homes. But no commercial buildings at all, those would all be concentrated along certain roads. In older US cities, parts of New York, Boston, take any has buildings with businesses and condos mixed, where you still can just walk to a small grocery store or bakery, like we still have today in Europe. We can still build that way, zoning in the US often does still not allow this any more. So there are way more layers to it than just road layouts etc.

[@rogerk6180]

Most of them have been planned in one way or another. In the past just with different goals in mind then today.

[@mismoonkie]

I love how in these videos Europe is portrayed as one single country, with the same planning mindset, philosophy, and history-and to illustrate it, they always use France or the UK 🤦🏼‍♀️

[@Soken50]

Oh come on, they were generous enough to include the *city* (sic) of Denmark and the famous European city of Sidney. You can't be so picky. /s

[@grischad20]

Is there big cities in europe that invalidate the point being made? I understand the whole "european arn't all the same" but they also are more similar than they are different....

[@Soken50]

@@grischad20 There were quite a few "planned" cities post WW2 which were heavily inspired by US design or Le Corbusier's "Radiant City" that definitely would invalidate the point made.

[@grischad20]

@@Soken50 imo, what would make the "not all european are the same" complaint stick in this case would be if one culture had developped using grid square historically. Some city trying the square grid because they got burned to the ground doesn't invalidate the fact that most european city grew organically into that radial-ish shape.

[@Soken50]

@@grischad20 Most European cities suffered great fires, bombings and ego projects that resulted in different planning approaches depending on the period. Post WW2 reconstruction was particularly eggregious in that regard.

[@masepa8519]

Many European cities were built on ancient Roman camps and the Romans designed their camps in a square way. Later, over the centuries, cities grew radially around those first historic centers. European cities may seem more confusing but they are very pleasant to explore on foot also because each neighborhood has its own history and personality, in some cities, like Rome, you can see buildings from different centuries at the same time

[@johanneshalberstadt3663]

Grid plan wasn't invented in the U.S.A.. The ancient Romans have already used a grid system.

[@saladspinner3200]

Yes, but the Americans succeeded into making them unpractical.

[@verttikoo2052]

Grid system was invented much much earlier. About 4500 years ago with modern agriculture.

[@tectumfeles7207]

And the ancient Chinese loved the "grid" thousands of years ago

[@nicoladc89]

This video is just stupid. There are a lot of European cities with a grid plan (Barcelona, Vienna, Napoli, Torino, Madrid, Valencia, Milano partially, Verona, Messina, Glasgow etc...)

[@solaccursio]

but not really for cities, mainly for military camp purposes

[@jeanmichel2642]

when I see in googleearth the US square shaped areas suburbs (usually 1square mile), all aligned but completely separated from each others, and with only 1 or 2 road accesses. without any local grocery or shops. imagining living there is a nightmare for me

[@BlackHoleSpain]

They even have laws AGAINST mixing businesses and homes, so crazy that's destroying their country, and yet they cannot see it!

[@mindscraper1978]

The grid design square shaped design is european too, prime example, and actually Mamhattan was build after the idea of Mannheim Germany. And it works in Mannheim pretty well, the problem with US grid system is the zoneing, only residential, only commercial, Europe has mixed zones.

[@Soken50]

@@mindscraper1978 Yeah, honestly a square grid can work just fine, as evidenced by urban planners gushing about Barcelona's Superblock any chance they get. The real challenge with US planning is the strict separation of residential, commercial and light industry/artisan zones which forces everyone to travel great distances (by car) to do anything outside the house and the very low density of most residential zones.

[@chronic2023]

I admit, US suburbs are really awful.

[@AlexFranceParis999]

The city of Paris was not "designed" for cars or against cars. The city developped in chaos for 1500+ years, =before= cars existed. The only big improvement to the city "design" was implemented by baron Georges-Eugène Haussmann around 1850 : baron Haussmann destroyed some 18 000 very old houses, replacing them by the large avenues and "modern" 19th century comfortable buildings you see know in the center of Paris.

[@WaddleQwacker]

Chaos is a big word that implies there was never a single thought put into it. But it's more like different designs were applied over each other over centuries from the Parisii gauls to the Romans, Frankish and so on. Each answering to different needs and cultures, and at all times "battling" somewhere between following said design by the book vs doing what you can with what you have each time you build new or change something.

[@jca111]

Most of London I don't think was designed. Modern London is an absorption of many towns into one giant Metropolis. Richmond, Greenwich, Bromley, Croydon, Hampstead, Barking etc to name some towns that became assimilated into London. So no, it's not a grand design. Some elements have been designed, but not the overall picture.

[@Mike-zx1kx]

Most European cities have city planners and/or specific city planning departments, that focus on making the cities incorporate "liveable spaces" so that new buildings and areas are not just built on commercial grounds but have trees, benches, access to public transportation, bicycle lanes etc.

[@Muck006]

Same for Berlin ... you can still see the "eye", the VILLAGE CORE consisting of a CHURCH, the HOUSE OF THE PRIEST and maybe a duck pond surrounded by one-way streets on both sides, on the city map today.

[@seigneurcanardo7030]

Paris absorbed lots of smaller towns too : La Villette, Belleville, Vaugirard, Grenelle, Auteuil, Passy, Batignolles-Monceau, Montmartre, La Chapelle, Charonne and Bercy.

[@henrybest4057]

After the Great Fire in 1666 the "city planners" wanted to rebuild London on a grid system. However, the land owners (some of them VIPs) did not want to give up their land for a grid system, even if all the buildings on it had burnt down. So, the old street system was largely retained.

[@Bramfly]

Not really designed. More organically grown. As our cities are sometimes thousands of years old there were no cars, other than horse drawn carts, so no need to design cities for them. Most importantly though is the fact that cities must be designed for the people that live, work in them.

[@gabriellanagy5416]

That's not really true... even "organic grow" had a plan... in ancient settlements, the chief's tent/ the fire, later the church, the town hall etc were in the middle, and other houses were built around them. The Roman empire was very professional in city planning, but starting from the medieval ages there were always city rules on construction: who could build houses, where to, what kind of houses, how the façade should look like etc.

[@CodeNascher_]

ah yes, the city of denmark 😂 edit: wow, how he butchered champs elysées

[@Muck006]

Americans (native english speakers) and learning how to pronounce french? Are you joking?

[@janfrodeengh5904]

>in cities such as Denmark... Ok. I'm out of here.

[@CodeNascher_]

@@Muck006 "shaws elisay" at least french is phonetically consistent

[@tapunyr8526]

UK and European cities grew from villages and small towns over such a long time. We didn't 'build radial cities'. City planning is a relatively new concept when you look at how old most of our major cities are

[@augustiner3821]

City planning exist since cities are being built, so for a very long time

[@CROM-on1bz]

This is not entirely true for Paris, where the works carried out by Baron Hausmann under Napoleon III completely changed the city. In this case, this 'radiality' was sought and created to facilitate transport and to do away with the medieval alleys.

[@aidekhia81]

I mean the radial design came natural because it expanded from the center where most time the townhall or a church was in medieval times

[@SuppenDfg]

The topology might not have been intentially, but it wasn't random either. When a villiage developed from just a few houses to something bigger, you would normally build a church and a market place which would become the new center of the village. Businesses and also people want to live close to the center and that then leads to a radial design.

[@sanitychek]

It's less about 'residential' or 'walking' as the narrator suggest - and more about the basic design being the amalgamation of local centres into one big city, naturally. Even when design was undertaken (eg Wren's London, Napoleonic Paris, etc.) it was built around having a 'centre' for each area. The US on the other hand has no centres to the city (something europeans recognise when they go there). That's the real difference, centres have to arise and be recreated later on top of the grid monotony, but in europe it's been more organic and focal point based from the start. Makes it that bit more 'human'.

[@gamingtonight1526]

Blocks make American cities boring, it makes the driving boring, and it forces lots of "square" buildings!

[@seanthiar]

It makes driving more dangerous because straight streets lead to speeding.

[@Mike-zx1kx]

And have a lot of traffic lights making driving a stop/start experience that does no good emission wise. Local air pollution is a huge killer especially in US and Asia besides it´s obvious bad impact on the global atmospheric carbon content.

[@SiqueScarface]

Paris is quite a strange example, as Paris was redesigned in the 19th century, especially by Georges-Eugène Haussmann, prefect of the Departement Seine, which includes Paris, between 1853 and 1870. He invented the long, straight, wide roads (Boulevards) meeting in large, circular knots like the Place de la Concorde. His urban renewal programs were executed without much thought given to previous land uses. In Rome, a similar program was executed after the Italian Risorgimento (Rebirth) 1861-1864. Rome also got those wide axial roads, and sometimes, they would just cut through an existing palazzo. The main difference between the U.S. and Europe in the 19th century was "grid city" vs. "axial city". But there are notable exceptions. Washington, DC for instance was designed as an axial city, while Mannheim, Germany was designed as grid city.

[@19Edurne]

Washington DC was designed in great part by a French civil engineer, Pierre Charles L'Enfant. Guess where he got the idea...

[@missharry5727]

I once flew past Paris at night on a seriously delayed flight from Switzerland to London. It's absolutely enchanting, a cobweb of light.

[@kkon5ti]

Thank you

[@JohnResalb]

Hi Ryan. The tendancy for most European cities (and indeed towns) is for traffic free centre zones. This can be exclusively pedestrian or it can be "bus only". You leave your car in outskirts carparks and take a shuttle bus in. In many European (and some British) cities, the bus is free and runs in a circle around the historic and commercial quarters, connecting the station and bus station.

[@wormsblink2887]

The video is just wrong, cities were not built radially but rather constructed organically over centuries of mergers and tiny modifications.

[@KeesBoons]

I assume the intentions of the creator of the original video were good, unfortunately he didn't have the knowledge needed. "Hij heeft de klok horen luiden, maar hij weet niet waar de klepel hangt" or he has an understanding of something, but fails to grasp the full story.

[@jacques7315]

I had to stop at 0:45 already. Paris was redesigned in the 19th century and the grid of Manhattan already existed at that time. I don't care about the rest if the video starts with this nonsense. The Netherlands are a prime example for why history is almost irrelevant for this particular matter. The title has a bias, too: it's missing "well designed *for pedestrians or bikes*".

[@uinsel]

its so cute seeing Ryan being as confused as us Europeans about parking and the size of cars used by just one person ;)

[@johnveerkamp1501]

YOU LOOKING AT THE WRONG VIDEO , YOU MAST LOOK AT [NOT JUST BIKES ]

[@bognagruba7653]

That's exactly what I wanted to point out. This video was full of misconceptions and generalizations. Not Just Bikes is the right channel for this topic.

[@rogerk6180]

Or city beautiful

[@Mike-zx1kx]

@@bognagruba7653 Except it seems to always have an underlying commercial lean towards pushing for stupid electric bikes.

[@bognagruba7653]

@@Mike-zx1kx Who? Not just bikes? He once said he would prefer to take trams over biking if Amsterdam had a better tram network.

[@Mike-zx1kx]

@@bognagruba7653 I stopped watching that channel long time ago after watching about 4-5 videos about cities I had good personal knowledge of and where a bias were expressed pushing electric bikes and Netherlands as presenting the eternal truth as reference. He made a damning inaccurate review of my own town that were so filled with faults and inaccuracies that it were shocking and then he took his faulty information and related that to Amsterdams. Well, that´s one way to prove a point you want to push but it´s not factual, it´s having an agenda without saying it out loud. The guy making the clip that is reacted to above could have learned a lot if he had asked someone with insight. Not Just bikes made a 5 clip series about my city that he even in the clips say are based on less than 5 hours of biking in the city. He could have taken the clips and showed it to someone with insight and he would have had to start all over. He had an agenda before arriving and he followed it through! I had not been impressed by clips before that because he said stuff I deeply disagreed with regarding other cities I had lived in or visited a lot but the one of my hometown were agenda filled, incompetent and demonstrated lack of ability OR wish, to seek real information.

[@mikaelhultberg9543]

I lived in LA in 2011 and 2012, and found that city very easy to navigate because of the grid pattern compared to my home town of Gothenburg in Sweden. In LA you navigate by intersections and that is very efficient. In Gothenburg you have to know the exact street address. But the grid pattern also makes the city very boring and uniform. In LA all the green spaces are created and fit into the grid, while in Gothenburg they aren't. Instead the city is built around nature, and so the green spaces feel more natural. Although both cities have public transportation, the one in Gothhenburg is much more reliable because it is almost always on time regardless of when during the day you use it. In LA it all depends on the car traffic flow. Often during rush hour (both mornings and afternoons) the buses were around one hour late so taking the earlier bus became norm for me and my room mates when going to class (I wen't to Santa Monica College), and that usually meant leaving home half an hour earlier. That rarely happens in Gothenburg. If you miss your connection, there is always a new bus or tram (cable car) within ten minutes.

[@Hey.Joe.]

I would get lost in huge copy & paste areas without unique reference points/ landmarks to remember, where everything looks the same like in a big warehouse. I prefer memorable points for finding the way again without the need of navigation apps and for more pleasant variety for the eye and for taking pictures.

[@Zych.Grzegorz]

The video fails to mention how most European cities grew organically from a number of smaller settlements that merged together over time.

[@spiritualanarchist8162]

Ah yes. The American grid- method ! ( As introduced by the ancient Roman empire allover Europe . ;) This video is a allover the place . Paris centre was re-build in the 19th century, and used the spoke pattern. Barcelona however was rebuild in the 19th century on a grid pattern.. New York's Manhattan used to be New Amsterdam, and was build with a grid pattern by the Dutch . Some European centers have grids, some are circular, most just grew randomly .There is no general 'European design '

[@DenUitvreter]

I think it was also a matter of fashion, it was the early enlightenment, we see also a fascination with geometry and rationalism in Dutch gardens and land reclamation projects of that ime. Amsterdam already had straight lines put into a concentric design, concentric for city wall reasons. Manhatten was not a fortress city.

[@retropaganda8442]

The lack of blocks in Paris is compensated by landmarks being visible from many angles, so you rarely get lost.

[@haraberu]

One of the reasons why even smaller towns had churches with tall bell towers.

[@ryttyr14]

I guess that's one thing European and US cities have in common then: finding a parking space. The difference is that in Europe that becomes an incentive to not take the car and why so many Europeans living in cities doesn't even own a car. But in a car-centric country like the US the lack of parking space becomes a daily nightmare.

[@annafrolova7891]

I live in Moscow, the second largest city in Europe. I don't have a car, our public transport is excellent! But traffic jams and parking are still a huge problem. I don't understand why so many people still prefer to spend hours in traffic and looking for parking than to get their arses out of the car.

[@godlesspagan459]

Star cities are mind-blowing! The extensive earthworks, the canals, the gorgeous symmetry, the islands and fortresses all amazing!

[@martinhuhn7813]

"The model of the european city", "the blueprint of the european city" ... That is really, really ... really nonsensical. European cities have extremely different designs and that even includes grid based designs reaching back to the ancient romans, medieval designs, organic developments (including merging of multiple smaller and older communities) and various (regionally different) more modern concepts - including redesigns at large scales. The person who made the video understood very little about european cities - which should have become evident, when he called the country Denmark a city. If you really want to start to understand the differences, do yourself (and your american viewers) a favour, open google maps and explore the layouts and differences of various cities yourself.

[@phoenix-xu9xj]

As London is 2000 yrs old and was originally a village, I don’t think it was designed. The Romans probably introduced the first element of any design, but not like urban planning.

[@PoiarNoia]

Not correct. After the great fire of London, when the city was to be rebuilt, the English opted for the old ways rather than the grid method

[@gabrigab1397]

The Romans did actually start urban planning: cardo and decumano are the two main axis in the roman founded cities, like London or Paris.

[@richardcook9794]

London is classed as an urban forest and one of the biggest

[@seanthiar]

9:20 USA-cities have the problem of strict zoning beside being car centric. Zoning laws in the USA does not allow a mix of residential and small business. A bakery, a butcher, a small grocery store, a barber and a restaurant in the area of 15min by foot of residential home is not done in the USA. If you forgot to buy something for your Sunday cake you often have to drive an hour in the USA while in Europe it's a short walk to the grocery store to get some flour, eggs, etc. in grocery store around the corner. Something you can ask your kids to do. Another problem are the parking laws - as far as I know a business has to have the same size of parking lot the business building has. I saw a video where they said that there are more parking spaces than cars in the USA, while in Europe you have less parking spaces than cars. For example Düsseldorf has 326000 commuters daily and only 13500 public parking spaces. Most of the commuter park their cars on special commuter parking lots near the train stations and use the train to get into the city. Both situations are not okay. The USA has to much and Europe to few parking spaces. Having a more comfortable amount like 3-5 cars for every parking space would be a better solution in my opinion.

[@rotmistrzjanm8776]

Yes and the worst part is the fact that zoning in US was introduced to separste black population from white one after abolishing slavery

[@wendychouxx]

6:40 about the parking in France, we have kind of the same problem in paris

[@UVCMD]

2:13 As far as travelling around the city "quicker" goes, you have to factor in, that you either searching for a parking spot at your destination, or have to travel much further distances by foot as soon as you leave the car, since not everything is a "drive thru". In addition you have to factor in, that not everybody is even capable driving a car, either because it's too expensive, or you simply can't do it due to heath issues. And what about kids? The time you save by getting to your destinations faster, you lose by having to drive your kids to their destinations. Not even getting started with traffic jams...

[@XeanIV]

says "traveling around a city quicker" shows NYC traffic

[@Ciofey]

The grid method is perfect for creating gridlocks, as cars can easily be blocked by each other around any block, guaranteeing that no one can back out of the situation.

[@segment932]

There is an old saying in Europe that is: All roads lead to Rome. Thus all roads are radial outwards from Rome.

[@Mazil_5]

6:14 lol, the pronunciation 😂

[@haraberu]

"Shantelissays" is certainly an innovative way of pronouncing Champs Elysées

[@marcolanger8400]

I just want to point out, there's one city in Germany that is famous for its grid system or "Quads", that is Mannheim, Baden-Württemberg.

[@Mapaed]

No far away - there is the "star shaped" city of Karlsruhe. With the Palace in the middle of the star. It was designed that way.

[@johnsimmons5951]

In London, building developments in the 1800’s the road were in a grid pattern. Whereas in the 1930’s and later road were designed in circles and in the 1950’s the road were circular with individual road not being through roads, this enabled neighbourhoods to developed and through routs kept away from residential areas.

[@ryttyr14]

9:12 Wait wait wait wait wait wait..... You find it WEIRD that cities are built to be lived in? The mere thought that you feel that way feels outright alien to me, like I can barely even fathom that that's what you actually think.

[@CROM-on1bz]

Without being an expert in the matter, a country whose surface area of ​​parking spaces for cars is greater than the surface area reserved for housing is wrong, and this is the case of the United States.

[@stephenlee5929]

I think it also has enough parking spaces for each car to have 8 spaces.

[@BlackHoleSpain]

Most cities in Europe were walled locations which had to be protected in Middle Age from wars and battles, with castles and so on. Later groups of artisans chaotically built their neighbourhoods outside the wall limits. But USA wasn't created in medieval or feudal times, they cannot know how those shaped a different world.

[@vendo7878]

finally someone wrote the right argument

[@tyrellalexander-f1i]

When a French word ends with a consonants, It is pronounced silent. So the "s" at the end "champs" is not to be sounded out. Same with "étudiant" which is the masculine version of "student". However the feminine version "étudiante" the last "t" is pronounced because the word ends with a vowel. Please pronounce correctly; it just sounds terrible if you don't. Thank you for attending my TedTalk. :)

[@annafrolova7891]

I don't think everyone should know the pronunciation rules of all languages ​​using the Latin alphabet. The French also mispronounce German, Swedish, Czech, etc. words. And that's okay.

[@BoredSquirell]

Ryan slowly becoming an urbanist youtuber

[@ViviNorthbell]

yeah well, European cities are not so much "designed" but grew over hundreds of years. Started with group of huts, grew bigger, had walls around it, grew out of it again and at some point centers where marketplaces, churches or city townhalls. I mean all is wayy older than for example Jamestown, Virginia (1607).

[@kennethAmos8929]

The photo you saw from Denmark with all the small “ rings” are not streets, but small gardens usually for city people to rent, so they can get out of the cities, and grow their own vegetables and fruits

[@Kivas_Fajo]

There is absolutely no faster way, on foot, than navigating a European city, which is hundred of years old and started in medieval times. It looks weird and confusing, but it's actually also planned, not random. It was designed, when almost all of the population did their daily things, on foot.

[@thunderbolt8409]

european cities had an organic growth during 2000years they become larger without the car in mind and the planification exemple are very late in the history without car in mind It's the principal reason why make pedestrian and bile lane are easy to make in Europe US totally destruct cities in 50 years it was a cultural and urban genocide you need to totally rebuild yours cities with mixed used, more density and public transports

[@peterkeijsers489]

In the Middle Ages, cities (in Europe) were built usually around the most important building, which in those days was mostly a church, or the city hall. So the radial base was much more common and convenient. Also, differences in height didn't always provide a grid-like city planning.

[@Kit_Bear]

Our Cities were designed with the horse and cart in mind. The centre of the city was where people could trade/buy/sell and the outskirts of the city were residential properties. The residents or traders would come from the outside travelling towards the centre. Cities grew from the centre outwards. The street patterns stayed pretty much the same but houses were demolished or repurposed like two houses being knocked into one building and changed to a single shop for example. You see this change happen a LOT in London.

[@chronic2023]

I have visited the city of Denmark in the country of Europe many times. The borough of Copenhagen is particularly lovely. 😊

[@danielmalinen6337]

In Finland, the city center is often a small dense imperial grid because the planning of many Finnish cities is done or has been renewed in the 19th century by state architect Carl Ludwig Engel who loved the Roman Timgad (Engel's contemporary rural architects criticized their fellow for rejecting Finnish traditions and violating the copyright of the architects of classical antiquity such as Trajan, who was believed to have been the architect and builder of Timgad). Engel kept the size of the block at six plots, and two rows of three plots were separated by fire alleys and the only exception is Jyväskylä where the size was eight plots (size of one plot approx. 0.69 acres). Outside that grid, however, Finnish cities have often grown more naturally, following nature, space and the terrain. The exception is land fill on the waterfronts in order to get new shore lots for new buildings in front of the former shore lots.

[@thedutchhuman]

You already indicate it yourself, the cars are TOO BIG and they usually sit in them alone. There are enough alternatives, but they don't want to start with them, and that is why little is changed. Plus the lobbying of the car manufacturers in the USA plays a big part, hence little to no bicycle and pedestrian paths and little to no decent public transport.

[@ChrisMain3791]

In Europe, cities were almost never planned but simply grew over time. The radial base comes from the Middle Ages, where there was a church in the middle and houses were built around it. If you look for the old town of European cities, you will usually find them again and often these points are also, historically speaking, the first settlement area of ​​the city.

[@fj972]

you REEAALLY need to make a trip to europe and document it all! focusing on things youve learned watching these videos

[@DavidDoyleOutdoors]

Navigating European cities is easy, most main roads lead to the centre usually where the business and shopping district is, also we don’t have traffic lights every 100 yards lol

[@claregale9011]

My sister went to Newyork and said how bad the traffic was the beeping there horns all the time . Give me an old city any day looks nicer for a start .

[@vankesselable]

You can check ; "5 minutes of traffic on a Dutch roundabout with bi-directional cycling lane". Pretty interresting design. Cyclist have rightof way as soon as they are on the roundabout. No traffic lights but the traffic just flows along steady. Cheers.

[@TwospotzArtAndCraft]

Here in Gothenburg, Sweden, we still have the medieval street pattern in the downtown areas and a veey organic growth of streets and blocks . We do see a growing number of square areas but also a lot of curved roads and interesting solutions to make the streets more interesting.

[@phoenix-xu9xj]

We have multi storey at parks in the U.K. But I imagine London has a parking problem for residents but then we don’t have monster cars and trucks usually.

[@MichaEl-rh1kv]

1:00 The city of Mannheim is famous for being "blocky". Its nickname is "city of squares" - not because of somewhat rectangular places, but because its blocks are (roughly) quadratic. Built in the 17th century on order by the Elector of the Palatinate, it followed the fashion in urban planning of the time: grids. Addresses in the inner city have no street names, but block names corresponding to a chessboard notation like D6 (running from A1 to U6). Another city planned and built in the early 18th century is Karlsruhe, the fan-shaped city - the 32 central streets radiate from the palace of the Margrave (Marquis) of Baden, but only the southern quarter was (originally) filled with buildings, the other quarters were used as parks and hunting grounds. Urban planning began in Europe (again) after the middle ages, which translates to around the mid of the 15th century - from that point in time on you can see urban districts with a pattern of regularly spaced streets meeting at right angles. But in the beginning most cities were still walled and the place within the walls scarce, so streets were built only built as wide as necessary (coaches had to be able to pass one another at certain locations, but that was enough). London and Paris are both cities which grow more or less organically together from smaller towns and villages around a river. In the last centuries they underwent some attempts in partial re-ordering (by demolishing and rebuilding whole neighborhoods), but those did in total rather increase the impression of chaos. To compare them with a planned city like New York is a bit like comparing apples with oranges (or with pears, as Germans would say). 2:05 Bike paths are a rather recent addition to European cities - but most European cities were never as car-centered as US cities, even if some were rebuilt in this fashion after WW II (most bigger cities in Germany and some other countries were mostly destroyed anyway, but they tore down even more historic neighborhoods to make place for cars and roads - there was however also much opposition to this kind of urban or rather deurbanizing planning). 4:30 Like in Karlsruhe the radial-based city plan was mainly in fashion during the time of absolutism in the 18th century and mostly for capitals - the center of the circle was the palace of the state's ruler. But since most cities were not planned newly at a drawing board, but existed long before that fashion, so only parts of the city were rebuilt in this pattern and it is often difficult to see nowadays. The picture in 4:49 shows the Arc de Triomphe in Paris with the 12 streets radiating from it; the Arc was built by Napoleon (finished by Louis-Phillipe I) a bit outside of the inner city with originally 4 radiating streets, the other were added around 1854 (during the reign of Napoleon III). 5:00 The city of Denmark? The design goes back to ancient times? Both statements are nonsensical. And the aerial view in 5:05 shows a modern suburban settlement.

[@zeynel13]

Well, the "radial" one showed was Paris, which was in good part totall rebuilt and modernised in the XIXth century. They kept all the important landmarks, palace, churches and the like, some of the most interesting buildings, as well as some parts like the Île Saint-Louis (XVIIe century), part of the quartier latin (medieval to revolution) and of the Île de la Cité, but most of the "common" houses were destroyed and the curent buildings constructed. The architect was the Baron Haussman (hence why we call those buildings "haussmaniens", same with the "boulevards haussmaniens" -the big avenues) and he did specifially chose the radial system with some big avenues, the "arteries" of the city (some that already existed previously and were just enlarged -usually those whose name is "boulevard"), with smaller ones re-divising the city blocks (which aren't quite square). At the time, some critics said he was making those avenues "too,large" but already by 1900, they were considered barely sufficient for the traffic. But many don't follow this radial construction and growed organically around the important parts. One thing the video maker didn't seem to know is that the cities built in by the Roman Empire actually were build into blocks for efficiency (look at Pompei !), so many of the european cities began like that, and quite often celtic and scandinavian cities were originally build a bit like that as well. Thing is, things changed with the centuries, sometime a block (or even a city) was destroyed by an incendie, sometimes a new building was build that needed more place (church, palaces, bigger townhouse) and then changed had to be made to add a place, etc. And the population augmented but needed to still be behind the wall for security, so houses and shops were packed together. Add in change after change after change for centuries -and the fact that rivers are not as fixed as we tend to think, their banks changing with centuries, a canal added, then moved, etc... The cities quite changed during the centuries !

[@DenUitvreter]

If you have to build a wall around a city for protection the circle is the shape that offers the most protection for the least amount of stone. If you have a village at a junction of several roads in the centre you can make a village square by turning the junction into a big roundabout. Amsterdam, the one on the old map, is one of Europe's first designed cities. It was designed to give the greates number of merchant houses direct access to the canals so they could use the top floors as warehouses. It was designed to make money more than any city, just not only one time by selling the plot but for continuous money making. It is a half circle because there is a river to one side and fortifications on the other side.

[@CROM-on1bz]

Amsterdam one of the oldest cities in Europe? It was founded in the 12th century. Rome -653, Marseille -600, London 100 AD, Paris -100 and I'm forgetting at least fifty more.

[@winterlinde5395]

@@CROM-on1bzread again☺️

[@DenUitvreter]

@@CROM-on1bz No, one of the first designed cities. Amsterdam was a small fishing village that came about after floods changed the local geography for ever and the people had to control the water. In the 15th century it started to grow through trade and then the designing began. The extensions were planned, and had to be because canals had to be dug. Older cities grew mostly organically. Because it's such a young city, it was a planned, designed city for the most part.

[@Mapaed]

@@DenUitvreter In central Europe there is a boom for founding cities between around 1150 and 1300. Those cities have been planed - for sure. The layout of the streets is planed - they have been formed out of two parts of a circle, a fixed arc radius. First in one direction, in the middle of the street if changes direction. From left to right - and the other way round. And of course - the old town (landscape provided) is encircled by the city wall with the city gates. The city walls are nowadays often destroyed - but the city gates often still in existance. And the city wall is replaced by a circular road ...

[@DenUitvreter]

@@Mapaed Cool, you have a name of such a city so I can google the street plan? I live in a city that only allowed for building outside the defenses in het very late 19th century, so the centre is very compact. The defenses were earth walls mostly and that is now part of a park. I use the steps up the wall for extra exercise when running.

[@lbhh]

Rome is a very interesting city and we have many important streets or avenues (ancient ones) that arrive to Rome from other regions and fare away from the city. Rome's map is like a bicycle's wheel with all the consular streets arriving to the center. And around the city there is a road as a ring, which you can take to go to the opposite side of the city, without going into the complicated traffic of Rome. That round street is called "raccordo anullare".

[@missharry5727]

Ring road in England, or bypass. In my home town the adjacent motorway serves as an extra ring road, with exits about 5 miles apart at the east and west approaches to the town. The whole of the town centre is largely traffic free.

[@UVCMD]

5:40 It depends what you mean by "default method". It maybe make sense by modern standards. But historically many cities were designed around some feature and grew mostly organically. If you settle somewhere because of that feature (e.g. a crossing through a river or a tavern or something), your would maintain better access to it, by building radially, since you can then travel directly to it and not around a corner like you would have in a grid. In addition, cities had to be fortified and building a wall in a circle is by default the more cost efficient, since you can cut the corners.

[@littleprincess8526]

Last week we did a city game with our school for a week. We had to take the train to Ghent and seek for clues in the city. We had no idea where we would stay overnight or where we would spend the next day. We were split up in several groups of 10 with one adult joining us. We went from Ghent to Bruges to the Belgian coast, took the coastal tram to Swin, crossed the Dutch border. From there we did several Dutch cities and our last stop was in Germany. The fun thing is that one of my friends is an American exchange student. When she told her parents about her amazing adventure, they asked “wasn’t it dangerous” Well the only danger was that some might have gained weight from eating too much chocolates, fries and in the Netherlands bitterballen. In Germany we ate apfelschmarren. Yummy. 😅

[@robertmcross1]

Here in the UK our planning authorities in each city are the overriding decision makers when it comes to new developments and even changes to single properties. A major effect of this will be that they determine during the planning stage what infrastructure will need to be present, whether schools, shopping, medical facilities will be available. Public transport and cycle paths are also a big consideration. Most of our Main Streets where the majority of shops are located will be pedestrianised, therefore no traffic will be allowed apart from deliveries which are restricted to specific times, usually early morning.

[@ki5739]

You can reach the center faster walking on the radii towards it. A grid network makes walking more, but if everyone has a car it doesn't matter much.

[@Xiroi87]

Many old cities often had defensive walls around them, so they grew from the centre, often the main square where the market was, towards the limit of the wall, grids didn't quite make sense in that context. Having winding streets was also a good way of disorienting the enemy entering the town, while locals could run away or hide easily as they knew how to navigate their streets. That's now the old town in many cities, the walls often gone, and newer areas are built following a grid, which makes more sense

[@stefanpecher6334]

I like the way the Warsteiner beer made it into this video, too.

[@christopheauguste1532]

4:09 "when with the flow" is actually pretty true in many instances... Even more when build along a river and/or between hills! The super-round design as showed in the video is actually not that much used, as the central roundabout is bound to be clogged at rush hour! it's still true that many city are build more or less roundly, but it's more about having highways and others mains roads going around the city and not through it... and more and more often, instead of a central roundabout, the very center of the city is turn into a walk only zone!

[@louisl2829]

Cities in Europe are not well designed, because there is no "one method" to plan Paris for example, different ages, different visions, planning sometimes they build something to destroy and reorganized it few decades/centuries later, and they also built for commercial purpose in the middle ages, money is kinda old. Plus most of the planning was made before the car so Today pedestrian planning works pretty well but it was a nightmare in the 80's when they tried to put road everywhere.

[@EllaMtk]

Danke!

[@EllaMtk]

Do you know Isaac Asimov? and how he designed Cities, Transportation, Feeding, communication, education...? he was a frkg Genius and I think more people should know about his visions - he designed cities, transportation systems, galactic communication and trading systems - all in his mind and in his novels - he studied like everything, he emigrated to the USA - he wrote a bunch of very well know sci-fi-Novels and there are some precious interviews on youtube still available - he did think a lot about education and how humanity could be its best - just regarding city design... I had to tell you :-)

[@EllaMtk]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/eV6qgImHlpV4iq8 - technology is - just as beauty - in the eyes/hands of the beholder - in my humble opinion tech and knowledge right now are in the hands of power and power doesn't really want to lose it's grip on itself, you know.. but tech and knowledge and creativity itself are perfectly good tools if used by well meaning hands - sry fr bad english - you understand?

[@EllaMtk]

I just checked - Indiana is just about a tenth larger than Austria - very unnecessary information, yeah... anyways ^^ have a nice day - is it "good morning" now in Indiana? I am about to go to bed here in Vienna.

[@EllaMtk]

oh and, of course the automobile industry and the oil industry had a huge influence on how american cities where planned - might be disinformed about that, but might not?

[@Alias_Anybody]

Not all European cities are the same. Some were rebuild after being destroyed or burning down at some point, other grew purely organically. They simply tend to be somewhat circular because it's the most efficient shape. Also, older cities usually had (circular) walls which were usually demolished at some point, leaving circular rings of streets behind.

[@StoyanBorov]

1:40 Technology always has side effects that unfortunately we do not know (not aware of) in advance.

[@lexywackess]

Radial design in european cities has another effect : As you would have many mix buildings, with shops under and flats over it, you'll often have richer areas in the center and close to it (except usually trainstation place, where it's poor), at places with better public transport and more services. And as you're going to immigrants/workers etc, you'll be more in the suburb, so you're hidden from city center, and you'll have less transports, less shops restaurants police etc... It's that design that helped created communautarism as you wouldn't be able to blend. At least that's the case in France. I don't think it's any different in the US, where you'll have rich and poor areas, but here you'll have a massive difference in the services you can get. I think that difference is due to France (can't say for sure about rest of europe) more being built arround "bourgeoisie", so rich people living in the cities, historically owners of the shops in city center, and US being more built arround industrial sized economy. I don't think there's any good place of friendly people (as in, good vs evil). It's just not the same sight on rich people, USA being on another scale. Historical matter also at work because of course, european cities are mostly older than any industrial sized economy. When USA became a thing with that.

[@lexywackess]

And then if you take the example of Strasbourg, you have the city center historic place, then you'll have another big place with many stuff arround it, which is the area Germany designed during WW2 to make it the european capital. Then you'd have another created to relocate workers etc... So it's really a city that, when it was first a roman camp, wasn't imagined to be that big, it's after that, when industrialization hit, that they wanted to make it grow bigger, as you had already a city center built arround market, you already had that circle and could just build arround, and as you wouldn't want to be too far, you'll just keep that circly design.

[@thekitchenchikens]

This video is a gross generalization bordering desinformation. Said by someone who lives in a european city that has a grid and it s not concentrical. More importantly, most european cities that are bike or pedestrian friendly today became so in the last decades.

[@daphnelovesL]

City like Denmark? that's new.

[@simanova837]

walking distance example in germany (small city) bakery 240 meters, next bus stop 250 meters, t-shirt shop 40 meters, next big IT company with >100 employees 100 meters

[@princessesukii]

I agree that in the US, having everything built around the fact that you're using cars is more efficient... because most of the time, everything's pretty far away, so you absolutely need your car (or so I've heard). In Europe, outside of very big cities, you can often walk to do your groceries, go to the doctor, go to school etc, because everything was built around walking, in a time when cars didn't exist, so it's in our culture to have very close local services in every village. But I'm sure if we had had to build our cities when cars already existed, it'd have been planned around it too. But with things how they are, here in Europe it's often more efficient not to take your car, because parking it can be quite a hastle since there's not a lot of space that was planned for it when the cities were built. In my street, we can't even park on both sides of it (and most houses don't have a garage in Europe) because if we do, only one car can go through and it's supposed to be a two-way road, so we often have to park it a good walk away from home 'cause there's no space for it closer... (unless we're lucky and come home early enough that our neighbours haven't taken all the places yet! :D) Btw you're not a simple-brained American for being confused by Paris' map, everyone gets lost in Paris unless they've lived there for quite some time, and even then they only know how to go to the places where they've gone often lol

[@ansambel3170]

I think that they biggest thing americans don't get about european cities, is how reliable public transit is. You just check where you want to go, and you have options every few minutes, and if you want to be somewhere, at say 18:00 you'll be there within 5-10 minutes of the exact hour, even if you have to travel half the city. Sometimes there will be some traffic, and some cities are better than others, but it's usually good enough, to be fine with it. That makes travelling by tram or bus viable, and means some ppl just don't have a car, this means we can have less streets and parking, and the city is denser, and that means things can be closer together, so instead of going 10km's by car, you're going like 3 km's by buss. This also means you can buy groceries on the way from the bus stop so you don't need to make a separate car trip to the shop, because everything is close. Also smaller cars mean even less streets denser city. And btw, dense city feels awful because of the cars, so if there are less cars, the city center feels fine

[@geofrancis2001]

look at europe, all roads lead to Rome.

[@sharonmartin4036]

@@CobraChicken1302 No, the Romans actually used the radial system with walls around the cities, making them easier to defend.

[@spiritualanarchist8162]

@@sharonmartin4036 No, Rome grew randomly outwards over time. Starting in the valleys, sharing the 7 hills with other tribes. Ironically , every city Romans build in their empire was based on the grid -pattern of their fords . So it didn't design Rome as a radial pattern, and it obviously didn't think radial waseasier to defend. Why would that be easier to defend anyway ?

[@romanvssvmromania]

The Grid City plan was made also by the romans in the new colonies (Cardo and Decumanus Plan). Grid cities can also be pedestrian friendly, but you have to have a population of pedestrians that demand more alleyways instead of car lanes in the city circulation.

[@Pet1101]

We have "Blocks" here in the Central-City of Mannheim/Germany, called Quadrate😃👍🏻 Building began in 1684😃 The Adress can be, A5,22. That means Street A, Block 5, House 22👍🏻 total easy😉

[@andreadee1567]

You are right with the black hole comparison. The roundabout in Paris around the Arc de Triomphe IS a black hole. You can get lost there forever and never find out again. I am one of the survivers.

[@SanderEvers]

Building radial is just because cities in Europe are built over time. Sometimes hundreds of years. They usually start with a small center (fortified if the city is mideaval) and new area's are built around those. Which really encourages radial planning. That the cities are bycicle / walking friendly has nothing to do with building like this, but the way you design the roads and how you plan the zoning. For example Rotterdam has been rebuilt since the bombing of WW2 a lot like US cities (grid like) but still has the walkability seen in almost all Dutch cities.

[@MarisolFerreiraMarysoul]

Look at the grid, central pedestrian avenues and "scary" roundabouts of Barcelona..... And there are studies about the efficiency of roundabouts, btw.

[@nth_to_see_here]

As a European, one thing I do need to agree on- american cities which use mainly numbers to identify streets are a lot easier to navigate. If I'm in NYC and sb says "it's on the corner of 38th & 3rd" - I know exactly where that will be and how far away from where I am, without googling the street location. It is soulless, but it is easier ;)

[@BlackHoleSpain]

Grid designs go back to Romans and their military camps, it's not an "American" invention. We even used that technique for several cities in the new world, such as Lima or Mexico, the capitals of our two main Viceroyalties, which now are their "historical" downtowns. But I don't really like it. We have 2 districts in Madrid built that way in XIX century expansions, where all the streets and buildings look the same and you get lost. Btw, the city at 8:02 was Barcelona 😄 a city founded by Romans during Caesar Augustus which has 2000 years.

[@panoschatzis5388]

The grid planning actually also originates from Europe and in particular since the Hellenic Antiquity (Classical Era) around the 5th century BC. The first city state to incorporate such planning was Athens and in particular for the port area of Piraeus. Commissioned by Pericles and designed by Hippodamus who is considered the father of city planning. This type of planning can be traced backed to the 8th century BC in some areas of Greece, yet in a much smaller scale. Another great example is the city of Thurium in Magna Grecia (Modern day southern Italy ). Other Great cities of Antiquity that adopted this planning configuration were Halicarnassus, Alexandria and Antioch. Finally and maybe most interestingly regarding Hippodamus for our American friends given the business oriented nature we Europeans have for you, is that Hippodamus created a whole philosophy regarding the rewarding towards individuals who create useful things for the society, ring a bell? The first seeds for Patents and Patent Law.

[@BrokenCurtain]

3:25 Those houses aren't actually densely packed at all, since that's all single-family housing. It's extremely inefficient. In Europe, you'd see podiums buildings at a place like that, offering housing for four to ten times as many people. That would also free up space for parks, shops, businesses and public institutions, like schools.

[@adpop750]

If you need a car instead of a bike it's by definition not more efficient in any way. American cities are designed that biking or walking simply isn't an option. But when Biking or walking is an option, a 5 to 20 minute bike-ride is more efficient than a 5 to 20 minute car ride, because of costs and never a parking problem. Besides that Americans take longer to reach work or shops in their cars, then Europeans do biking or walking. Example: I live an a European city, my house is in the city, my work is at the edge of the city. It takes me between 12 and 30 minutes to get to work in my car, depending on traffic, on average I'd say 17-18 mins. On my bike it takes always 14-15 mins, because traffic never is a problem. Ps. the 12 mins in my car, I did at night after 10pm, when all the traffic lights are turned of, except the ones in the city center and there was zero traffic.

[@1957mattes]

I don't know who was the first to build in blocks. But for example Mannheim in Germany and Madrid in Spain were already building in blocks long before America was discovered.

[@9wombats]

Rome

[@Sanginius23]

many Cities in Europe started as a roman settlement with a grid street system... btw, the video is not very accurate

[@mennovroom5537]

The cons about Europeans cities is when you have a good sense of direction of where you want to go. The streets don't always line up. You have to drive longer and make more turns than in an American city.

[@CROM-on1bz]

It's true, but it's so much more beautiful and diverse... The search for efficiency and aesthetics rarely go well together.

[@ChristiaanHW]

but there are always plenty of small streets/alleys so if you walk of cycle you can use those to get from A to B really quick. that's why it's often faster to cycle or even walk than drive a car in the old city centers.

[@user-eh2jk6mf9s]

My city is built triangulary, since there are 2 rivers meeting right in the middle of it. So basically people built in the 3 areas around the river and everything grew from there

[@byotip]

US cities were build around a grid system before cars were a thing. (and no, horse pulled carts weren't enough to require two driving lanes) both US & european cities were changed to accomodate cars. Zoning and suburbs in US made the car mandatory by distancing everything from everyone, snowballing into what we know today.

[@patriplaymobil]

Parking is a hell in Europe too, depending on where you live. For example, my ex spent almost 4 hours trying to find a parking spot when he head to home after work. He end up going back, parking in his workplace parking and taking a taxi. It was easier that way.