Why Cities With Grids Are Terribly Designed

Thank you Storyblocks for sponsoring this video. Click the link to check out Re: Stock and sign up for the Unlimited All-Access Plan: storyblocks.co...
Why Cities With Grids Are Terribly Designed
Support me on Patreon:
/ oliverbahl
Follow me on Twitter:
/ bahlfranke
References
Books and Papers
Reps, John William. "The making of urban America: a history of city planning in the United States." (1965).
Allocated, Land, and City Core. "Streets as public spaces and drivers of urban prosperity." Of urban prosperity 108 (2013).
Sun, J. & Lovegrove, G. (2009). Research Study on Evaluating the Level of Safety of the Fused Grid Road Pattern, External Research Project for CMHC, Ottawa, Ontario
Sobstyl, J. M., Emig, T., Qomi, M. A., Ulm, F. J., & Pellenq, R. M. (2018). Role of city texture in urban heat islands at nighttime. Physical review letters, 120(10), 108701.
Sun, J., & Lovegrove, G. (2008). Research Study on Evaluating the Level of Safety of the Fused Grid Road Pattern.
Lovegrove, G. R., & Sayed, T. (2006). Using macrolevel collision prediction models in road safety planning applications. Transportation research record, 1950(1), 73-82.
Ben-Joseph, E. (1995). Livability and safety of suburban street patterns: a comparative study (Vol. 641). University of California at Berkeley, Institute of Urban and Regional Development.
Mumford, L. (1961). The city in history: Its origins, its transformations, and its prospects (Vol. 67). Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
O’Grady, T. (2014). Spatial institutions in urban economies: How city grids affect density and development. Harvard University.
Ellickson, R. C. (2012). The law and economics of street layouts: how a grid pattern benefits a downtown. Ala. L. Rev., 64, 463.
Barrington-Leigh, C., & Millard-Ball, A. (2017). More connected urban roads reduce US GHG emissions. Environmental Research Letters, 12(4), 044008.
Barrington-Leigh, C., & Millard-Ball, A. (2020). Global trends toward urban street-network sprawl. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 117(4), 1941-1950.
Popular Press
Chandler , D. L. (2018, February 22). Urban heat island effects depend on a city's layout. MIT News | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Retrieved April 22, 2022, from news.mit.edu/2...
Grammenos, F. (2016, December 20). A grid balancing act for vibrant, varied, and sustainable places. Planetizen Features. Retrieved April 22, 2022, from www.planetizen...
Grammenos, F. (n.d.). Beloved and abandoned: A platting named Portland. Planetizen Features. Retrieved October 19, 2009, from www.planetizen...
Grammenos, F. (n.d.). Choosing a grid, or not. Planetizen Features. Retrieved February 14, 2012, from www.planetizen...
Gray, N. (2020, October 21). In a Land of Cul-de-Sacs, the Street Grid Stages a Comeback. Bloomberg.com. Retrieved April 22, 2022, from www.bloomberg....
McClelland, E. (2021, June 17). Why Chicago's grid is a model of Perfect urban order. Chicago Magazine. Retrieved April 22, 2022, from www.chicagomag...

[@OBFYT]

Thank you Storyblocks for sponsoring this video. Click the link to check out Re: Stock and sign up for the Unlimited All-Access Plan: storyblocks.com/OBF

[@carkawalakhatulistiwa]

Soviet micro distrik

[@DobbieDize]

Fuck storyblocks and all the annoying advising company"s!

[@skylanh4319]

Population is a big factor. All the top “cities” are relatively small. Second is industry. Jobs are needed for people to be happy. The grid has almost no impact on quality of life.

[@cijj84]

Auckland is crap to live in, how is it in the top 10.

[@No-ju9xz]

Man with all the disapproving comments I wonder what your dislikes are. Sadly we'll never know which is why people watched this misinformation. "Disliked" "reported for spam/misleading".

[@jeroenska.]

It is unfortunate you don't go deeper into Barccelona. It is most certainly a grid city, but tackled most of the problems you mentioned in Cerdá's original plan.

[@shikharashish4839]

He has a separate video on it about Barcelona superblocks.

[@jout738]

Barcelona in my opinion looks beutiful city. Made next to mountain as costal city, that has beutiful orange square house buildings a lot and so it just beutiful pleasant city to live in, when there aint so many cars, when the buildings are not so high and ugly like in America, that you would need so many cars.

[@jout738]

The thing is that Barcelona has so many tree’s next to every square building streets, that it does not look so ugly as American cities do, when it looks so pleasant and beutiful next to the Mediterrian water. I remember, when I was in Barcelona and I enjoyed watching from very high Camp nou’s football game and enjoyed how the buildings looked good and there were still some unique buildings you could look and from the mountains you could enjoy how you saw the whole city from there.

[@pieter-bashoogsteen2283]

@@jout738 ugly? Well that’s a matter of personal taste isn’t it?

[@Scyths1]

@@pieter-bashoogsteen2283 -- Ahh yes, my personal taste is seeing blocks of concrete that go from the ground to the clouds, as far as the eye can see when I look at my left, at my right, in front of me, and behind me. I see 3 things and 3 things only : Giant blocks that try to compete for the highest, an infinite number of cars, and traffic lights. Sometimes it feels like American cities aren't meant to be walked or driven on lol, feels like it's made for people who only move by helicopters therefore have no problem going around ...

[@maxvanced1495]

Chicago may be the most gridded city, but it's an injustice and a half to not look at how the city has facilitated parks, alleys, etc within this grid - making it perhaps the most livable city in America. It is quite literally impossible to get lost. Cities like Charlotte have no grid, yet they are exponentially more unlivable

[@sashamoore9691]

Exactly. And one of the most beautiful cities in the world

[@theviniso]

Chicago is a nice city despite being designed in a grid, not because of it.

[@maxvanced1495]

@@theviniso I mean the gridding is an essential part of it's master planning aspect that makes it so great in the first place.

[@theviniso]

@@maxvanced1495 Parks and alleys have nothing to do with a grid. If Chicago had an organic street layout it could just as easily have the same qualities.

[@maxvanced1495]

@@theviniso The parks were planned and envisioned by Burnham in the original Chicago masterplan. The grids have a uniform numbering system that allows pedestrians to easily navigate the city. Furthermore, the alleys are gridded into the city, hence why Chicago has the most comprehensive alley system in the world. The grid worked for Chicago, it created the controlled, near museum level order the city has going for it.

[@napoleonibonaparte7198]

What made the grids (especially American) worse: - Cars and car-centric - Bad Zoning (banning of mixed-use, etc.) - American Suburbs - No traffic calming - No public transport or gutting of it

[@jout738]

I redd what made the girls (especially American) worse.😂

[@IceSpoon]

And they don't use the metric system.

[@metanoide2178]

What made the grids worse: Cars How to solve it: Just ban cars

[@crystalross7943]

American Suburbs aren't on grid but cul de sac, and everyone from the bike cult hates them.

[@zowaeh1829]

Emperor Napoleon, why do I keep finding you in my recommended videos? Perhaps two great minds think alike.

[@goldeagle1824]

Despite having a very strong grid design, Chicago is one of the more liveable cities in the US. This is due to historically excellent city planning and redevelopment after the Great Chicago Fire. It's by no means perfect, but if leagues farther along than most other cities in North America.

[@DaveWave115]

Also worth noting is that most of the arterial roads in Chicago like Western Ave used to have regular street car service. They have been replaced by buses - so while public transit could always be better, there is a good existing network

[@honeycomblord9384]

From visiting Chicago many times, I can say that the parks and alleys definitely help the city look really nice. I've also heard that it's one of a few American cities where a sizeable portion of the population doesn't drive. To anyone from the city proper, is this true?

[@Pantsinabucket]

@@honeycomblord9384 I live in Lincoln Park, a fairly dense area with decent train access and a better bus system than most neighborhoods. Very few people drive, and finding street parking within a block of my apartment is almost always guaranteed. Considering there’s >200 units of housing on my block, I’d say that relatively few own a car, and I only use my car to drive in bad weather or go back to the suburbs to see my family. As a student, I know maybe 10 other people who have cars in the city, and almost all of them are from the suburbs like me or from southern Michigan where it’s still possible to drive home in a

[@ohioweatherguy]

@@honeycomblord9384 I lived in Chicago for years and would move back immediately if/when I get the work opportunity to do so. While living there, I did not own a vehicle. I relied exclusively on the CTA and walking. I'm not someone who typically likes using buses but Chicago's grid seemed to make the bus network easy to understand with very straight forward routes for the most part. I found the city very easy to traverse and loved the mostly uniform grid for understanding where I was in relation to certain destinations. For example, it's a half mile between each of the major east-west roads, so 0.5 miles from Belmont Ave north to Addison Street, 0.5 miles from Addison Street north to Irving Park, etc. I am a big fan of Chicago's grid.

[@HandlesAreStupid2024]

You widened the 4 foot streets downtown that are constantly under construction?

[@geography_czek5699]

Grids aren't a problem, cars are.

[@jonjessen]

Busses, trams and bikes all suffer in the grid system. Sharp bends a slowing, cross section even more so.

[@floristhijssen5319]

They once created a miniature UK out of sugar on a petridish and planted funghi spores. The fungi recreated the exact same road network as the UK actually has today. Even nature agrees that swirly branching connections are better than grid connections.

[@jonjessen]

@Zaydan Naufal true

[@jonjessen]

@@floristhijssen5319 you must share a link. That's cool

[@shikharashish4839]

@@floristhijssen5319 I want to learn more about. Its sounds interesting. Can you please elaborate more?

[@TheShortStory]

In the beginning it sounded like you were trying to avoid drawing conclusions from spurious correlations, but then you say “grids are correlated with more asphalt or paved areas”… which, because of the US’s urban design, car-centric culture and predominance of gridded cities is just that: potentially a spurious correlation

[@Racko.]

I dont think it has anything to do with being car centric, you can have a grid design and still support transit, look at DC, NY, Boston and Chicago, all grid systems with Transit, the cars are the problem

[@TheShortStory]

@@Racko. I agree. My point was: the US is very car-centric for a lot of reasons, and it also happens to have a lot of grids because the cities were built from scratch in modern times. Therefore, you can't conclude that grids are correlated with more asphalt and paved areas.

[@Racko.]

@@TheShortStoryTrue, It's quite the same story with Canada and Australia, even though not all of their cities are grid, they still face alot of car dependency, And what do all these 3 nations have in common? They're huge, spread out and lower density compared to European and East Asian cities/Countries, making long stretches of roads did fix most of the issue for long distances in a not high demanded area too

[@dmangsmile]

I'd argue that Melbourne, Australia is an exception to this. Despite the predominant grid it ranked as world's most liveable city many years in a row. I feel like most points in this video are specifically relating to US cities

[@shmiqqy]

it's a poor video for this reason and more, it didn't really make much mention of public transport, it didn't even talk about barcelona's superblocks beyond a shot of them maybe this is why people don't subscribe, or the poor/unconfident narration

[@michaelsinclair8018]

Melbourne has (generally speaking) a pretty good public transport system.

[@oldskoolmusicnostalgia]

@@michaelsinclair8018 ...if you're lucky enough not having to rely on its streetcars that stop behind red lights and cars and if you don't mind streetcars that spend more time stopping than moving.

[@residentspirit6023]

At least the CBD grid’s mostly car-free

[@KyleTremblayTitularKtrey]

Vancouver was the same. Grids are actually efficient too, the creator just has a hate boner for them.

[@hippopotamusbosch]

I’m not convinced. You’ve alluded to cars as a possible culprit. I’d add poor zoning regulations that contribute to suburban sprawl. All of which create a feedback loop of diminishing quality in urban life.

[@Spectral-Spiff]

Something i have noticed aswel is all of the "most orderly citties" are north american and not a single north american citty is on the liveable side and i have seen so manny americans complaining about terribke public transit and cars being a neccesity in suburban sprawl that i agree with your statement of terrible zoning regulation causes this issue but to add to it i think that said regulation also forces car dependancy witch makes the cities un livable

[@danielamir452]

Yeah, there's a ton being conflated in this video. First, we have the livable cities which are mostly in Europe. There's a ton of variables other than grids (which you mentioned) that explain why European cities are mostly more livable than the US, so a proper comparison should either look only within North America, or only within Europe. Then, we have grids being poorly optimized for car traffic. Apparently that makes them less environmentally sustainable? That they're bad for cars? Shouldn't we care more about how environmentally sustainable cities support pedestrians and public transportation? (Hint: they *are* pretty optimal here) Within the US, gridded areas correlate positively with better walkability, density, and urbanization. Couldn't the increased density explain the urban heat island effect, rather than some inherent property of the street grid? Certainly makes more sense than the grids "reducing the wind", anyone who has actually been in a gridded city will know that the grid can actually increase wind speed the ground since it can blow in the same direction, unimpeded, for longer distances. Just overall a frustrating video that points out a bunch of correlations without convincingly discussing causation.

[@oweneckert8474]

@@danielamir452 the video also ignores the history of US cities. While they are unlivable now, 100 years ago they were world class in terms of their urban design. They still had gridded street patters. The only difference was that there was a tram line or elevated train or better a subway on literally every street. Cars are the problem. Not the grid. Barcelona is gridded and is very walkable and livable even with Spain’s relative economic instability.

[@shikharashish4839]

@@danielamir452 It couldn't cover everything cuz OBF mostly makes 8-9 minutes video. That's too less to cover everything.

[@mkouf]

I agree. It would be impossible to navigate Manhattan without a grid system. No one would be able to find anything because no one is memorizing all of Manhattan. Knowing that I'm one avenue away or one block away helps me calculate distance since the majority of the streets are uniform.

[@alanlight7740]

A couple points to make here: First, many European cities were originally established by the Romans with a grid pattern, and over time moved away from a strict grid as there are advantages to some other patterns. Second, when speaking about grids vs. cul-de-sacs, the issue is not so much about a grid with all right angles so much as it is about streets that allow traffic to move through smoothly rather than ending in dead ends. It's about whether all traffic is forced onto a handful of high volume through roads, or is allowed to spread out over multiple roads.

[@EnjoyFirefighting]

you can still see the ancient Roman grid pattern in some of the European cities today; Thus in Regensburg City the streets of the former fort Castra Regina are still the very same today

[@krollpeter]

Most of the German cities that were originally founded by the Romans were founded as army camps and fortresses. They did not need to be pretty, the cities were build around them later. Medieval German cities and towns are not planned as grids. They are planned with bends, angles and distances that reflect the usage of the houses and made them purposeful for the activities of the people who lived there. For example, a short distance to a place that was needed nearby. Straights are found to the central places, usually the market place with church (to get the people there quicker there, and to transport the goods from outside to the central market). Today Germans say, that the layout of these places have something deeply homely, cosy, human, something that makes them very attractive ... but most are not aware why. There is a German video that explains what I claimed above, but it's only available in German language. Grid is shxt.

[@nosten5276]

Yes, I agree, it's the dead end and feed-to-arterial micro management that drives-me-mad. A grid street pattern can be ruined just as well; however, there's less hope, to begin with, for a curl-de-sac :P. 1. It's annoying when you're by car 2. even worse when you go by bike, since you have to travel less direct routes, especially when the bike routes are an after thought. 3. By foot you feel like you have to cross a waste land to get anywhere. Also those areas seem to favor a district "center" that is not very close by bike or walk, in front of proper neighborhood grocery stores. They are often not connected to the rest of town either.

[@yeshuahdenazareth7868]

Two points, two lies No, cities founded by Romans are not based grid design. Absolutely not. Traffic and street design are not related. There is a physical limit to any road. When it reaches full capacity traffic is jammed. As simple as that. Thanks for misleading the audience.

[@EnjoyFirefighting]

@@yeshuahdenazareth7868 at least (some?) Roman fortresses had a grid design; The one in my city had one and you can still see it today

[@TalwinderDhillonTravels]

OBF is soooo good at making flawed logic videos.

[@epender]

That's if you can even credit OBF as "making" them

[@Gursewak-Singh-Samra]

Shi keha babe

[@toddfarkman2177]

LOL. His next video "Food is bad, because it can kill you".

[@zengseng1234]

Thanks. I’m gonna skip this video.

[@NakAlienEd]

Gotta love these one-variable problems.

[@xavierhutcherson2896]

Its pretty clear that you're conflating "straight streets" with "the grid". The worst places to live in america (in terms of livability) arent the straight corridors of Chicago but the "curved" cul-de-sac of its suburbs. Thats due of a lack of interconnection between those streets. It creates a network (or lack of) that works against the creation of transit, or other forms of mobility INCLUDING WALKING! You mention Tokyo and Paris as examples of "curved street superiority" but forget to mention the insane level interconnection between their streets. Personally i enjoy Americas golden age grid cities and their straght lines, but thats just it, I understand thats my opinion and im not misinforming an audience that my opinion is fact or quoting bits and pieces of studies to fit my opinion... Grids are good for walkers and bikers and transit since they keep navigating as simple as "North, South, East, West" w You should watch StrongTowns or NotJustBikes on youtube if you want more information on City layout.

[@paleamigo8575]

I agree! Long live the Grid!🤣✌

[@_martix133]

"I'm not quoting anyone" *proceeds quote people*

[@RobBCactive]

You guys are conflating urban and suburban planning. The non-grid cities aren't about curvy streets but about proper centres, radial and rim connections. Livable cities have areas with centres within reach, not out of town junction centres.

[@loodwich]

I think that you need to check the city plan of Karlsruhe. Started in 1715 in a grid plant of radial streets and circular streets around the castle, now is a very good city to live in.

[@Skyfighter94]

Fun Fact: Washington DC was designed using city plans of Karlsruhe, which Thomas Jefferson brought with him from his visit to Karlsruhe in 1788.

[@JeffreyW67]

It is interesting that you state that grids are inflexible to the topographic idiosyncrasies of the terrain. That may be true, but some of those top ten cities with the most orderly streets have few, if any, idiosyncrasies. Chicago is flat as a pancake with not much variation to stop a grid. The Chicago River is not a large enough natural feature to disrupt the design. Miami and Minneapolis are also on flat land. As mentioned by plenty of other commenters, greater factors is how the US/Canadian zoned their cities and the availability of public transport. Amongst other factors.

[@jondabon6522]

Lol and San Francisco is super hilly and has a functioning grid too! The creator is saying stuff that straight up isn’t true :(

[@Mark_LaCroix]

The video is actually dumber than that. Minneapolis is largely flat, yes, but in the parts of the city that do have major elevation changes, or interact with the river or lakes, the street map adapts to it rather than forcing itself upon it. The entire downtown part of the grid is separated from the rest of the city's streets at a 45-degree(!) angle so it can align with the river. To posit that 19th-century street grids were massive terraforming projects is laughable on its face. Even with Minneapolis ranking so high on the that list it still makes major concessions to terrain and water.

[@oktoberregeln]

So I'm from Chicago. The city was made a grid after a large chunk of it burned down. You might have heard of it as it was called the Great Chicago Fire. Just seems like a weird detail to miss when you start out talking about the city.

[@FOLIPE]

I don't know, there are many great cities or parts of cities with rigid grid designs. It just seems that grid designs and unliveable cities are both correlated to modern suburban design and high car usage.

[@maxglendale7614]

This correlation is relevant in recent times. The 2019 list of Most Livable Cities is full of grid cities. The 2017 list has grid city Melbourne as number one with Vancouver, Toronto, Adelaide, and Calgary following- All these cities have a grid base.

[@daninthelionsden]

I always wonder why there are no hexagonal blocks in honeycomb patterned cities since its a really efficient shape...

[@raquetdude]

Sunlight could be a issue

[@maciejszulc2684]

A strict honeycomb pattern would cause all distances to be significantly larger though, because there are no long straight streets there, it's all bendy bendy. You would have to add some transit arteries cutting through every second block on their way, otherwise the travel times would increase drastically.

[@paleamigo8575]

What's efficient is being able to make 4 right turns and end up back where you started in the event that you missed an exit/turn. Add in an occasional diagonal street for efficiency and you're all set.

[@murdelabop]

Honeycomb street design has been studied in simulation, and the traffic problems are always insane. Same with cities that have extensive diagonal streets. In the case of grid+diagonal grid plans, in simulation the vehicle traffic always gridlocks to a halt. The only way planners have overcome this has been to close the diagonals to vehicle traffic and make them pedestrian and bicycle only. Which would be a political nonstarter in the real world!

[@Skyfighter94]

@@murdelabop Sorry that I have to correct your last sentence: "... which would be a political nonstarter IN AMERICA"

[@penderrin1637]

As someone whose job is to deliver food, a grid system with numerical only streets and adresses makes navigation incredibly convinient.

[@linuxman7777]

Grids also fail to address desire paths in ways that more organic cities tend to deal with them. After a few thousand years almost all grids break down into more organic layouts

[@abyrupus]

This. Grids are based on the premise that traffic should be uniform, which they aren't. Radial designs correspond to the reality that some routes and locations have more traffic than others, due to important buildings present there.

[@Swansniff2]

@@abyrupus Not only that, but a livable city means a lot of diversity in terms of the local neighbourhood. You want the social and transport hub in the middle and then sprawling out to more quiet apartmentblocks, you want the fancy bar street, the shop places etc. Everything within walking distance so you don't need big roads more than maybe to the center, or just good public transit.

[@georgewhite8118]

@@abyrupus actually that’s what I like with Detroit’s grid, is we have spoke roads that go in various directions paired with a grid so it’s not perfectly rectangular everywhere, and those roads are much wider than the neighborhood streets. Generally the streets are too wide in detroit but it’s allowed for the government lately to do more experimental things and have bike lanes and street side parking on pretty much every street while still having atleast 2 lanes of traffic which I think has improved them

[@jondabon6522]

Grids CAN help alleviate traffic though, I think most of these benefits are due to better public transport/planning in Europe. Bangkok isn’t gridded but has some of the worst traffic in the world. Grids are good, American city planning isn’t.

[@jondabon6522]

@Zaydan Naufal exactly!!! Doesn’t matter if you have a grid or not if you don’t have good transit and planning to go along with it.

[@BS-vx8dg]

I found this interesting and was beginning to think, "Hey, this guy has some out of the box thinking", until the sentence in which he says, in effect, "Flyover grids bad, Elite Progressive grids (Manhattan & SF) good", without offering a single datum to support that sentence. Then it seems he takes everything in the video back by filling the last 90 seconds with caveats undermining his video. TLDR: This video says nothing informative.

[@S-Nova0]

Yep, awful video for all these reasons. Seems to banking more on his production values than any proper research or original thinking.

[@luizalvesRJ]

In Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, the most liveable neighborhoods are Leblon and Ipanema, designed in Grid system in the early 1900's Basically a mix of tourist, residential and businesses buildings. Some features: - not boring - pedestrian friendly - 4 metro stations - every single street with Brazilians typical trees - skyrocket prices (from ice cream to giant penthouses)

[@brycek3434]

The advantage of the grid is that it allows you to know where things are in relation to each other. The random pattern of curved roads used in many suburbs is annoying enough in current form, but would be absolute hell on a the scale of a large city.

[@philippizza1]

Correlation =/= Causation 😭😭😭 you looked compared two data (grid scores and livability) and immediately and immediately thought that's must be it.

[@henriquesousa6089]

Other people have mentioned that the failures of the grid are a result of car-centric society. I would also like to point out that there is not just a choice between sprawl and grid city. You can have a highly dense area that does have a grid. I would dare say that such highly dense area also reduces GHC emissions. I think the whole subject is more a question of urban planning and how environmentally friendly the city is.

[@nectimusmaximus]

Watching this as preparation for the refutation video. Edit: It is refreshing to hear dissenting opinions within the city planning community on KZbin. As A microcosm of the wider urban planning community/industry, a wider range of opinions allows for a greater range in discussion

[@mobias1616]

Copenhagen is one flood mitigation system failure from disaster. Every city has a design flaw. Grids are great for land , navigation, and parcel management. However they are terrible for public transport due to traffic congestion. I wouldn’t put one city down while propping another up. Every city has a design flaw.

[@ninjanerdstudent6937]

The beauty of wandering around Chicago as a local or tourist is that, you can't actually get lost. You always know north, south, east, and west. Also, Chicago has the most magnificent architecture and unique buildings compared to any other city mentioned in the video. On the contrary, Zürich is very difficult to understand cardinal directions when wandering, and the architecture is repetitive, uninspired, and boring. Also, there are way too many clock towers in Zürich.

[@CarlosEmilioEsq]

I'm not sure this video made its case. Chicago is hardly boring. It has huge traffic issues, but the issue is the focus that American urban planners placed on the automobiles during the 20th century. The public transport system in Chicago is vast, though not as vast as in the past. There used to be more trains with more and far-flung connections that would even take you into neighboring states. Before the trains, there was a vast streetcar system. The original Burnham plan included large boulevards and some diagonal roads, extensive parks and open spaces, many of which were built before the Depression began. And in more recent decades, the city has placed a lot of emphasis on fixing troublesome traffic areas, and creating bike lanes. Other traits, like smaller lots/blocks (compared to NYC, for example) and alleyways also add to the functionality of Chicago's grid.

[@mikekilkelly2138]

in grid cities the traffics spreads out everywhere because all options for route have similar distances, in a non grid city traffic is funneled into main stretches of road. leaving surrounding streets mainly clear of traffic raises the quality of living there

[@Abcflc]

They are also less pleasing to walk… there’s something about organic grids that feels right.

[@saphironkindris]

I don't think they're specifically badly designed... boringly designed, sure, but there are a lot of other problems plaguing American roads than just being too orderly. As others have pointed out, Zoning laws have done a lot more harm than grid streets. Cars in general being allowed everywhere also causes problems, pedestrian gridways are fine I personally do like me a bit of chaos though, so long as that chaos isn't exceedingly anti-pedestrian.

[@Human_meat_eater]

Watch Alan Fisher's video proving OBF's mistakes in this video

[@titanicbigship]

hi

[@erickpalacios8904]

Vancouver was ranked at the top of most liveable city rankings for many years in a row, yet has the third highest grid coefficient on the table. Riddle me that.

[@lipschitzlyapunov]

Take whatever this guy says with a grain of salt. Also Vancouver has one of the best public transport in the world for such a tiny city of its size (700k people, 2.5 million in region)

[@pweaseadoptme5312]

@@lipschitzlyapunov thats why, most other grid cities dont have that so Vancouver is an exception not the standard

[@LostsTVandRadio]

In theory a grid system is more intuitive for navigating around. But I'd argue that (on the whole) if you live in older European town then you have an almost innate sense of being able to find your way round virtually any other older European town. The cues provided by the size and layout of roads and the geographical features leading to the centre are very organic. By contrast when visiting a city with a grid system you have to abandon your instincts and navigate by numbers. It can be quite disorientating!

[@GMAMEC]

Directions are much easier to follow on a grid system. Based on your location (North, south, east, or west), you either make a left or a right. If you miss a turn, it’s not a major issue.

[@purplemanatee]

I live in a gridded city and it's awesome. It's impossible to get lost. If I don't know where I am I can usually just drive until I hit a street I know. It also makes it so much easier to explain location.

[@aloe704]

*As someone who's moved from Minneapolis to Charlotte I can confirm: I MISS GRIDS.* Cities like Chicago and Minneapolis are gridded which means you mostly go straight and the time it takes to get to the other side of town is reasonable. ON THE OTHER HAND, cities like Dallas and Charlotte have roads like spaghetti. Which means you rarely drive straight and there are many curves. And the time it takes to get to the other side is MUCH LONGER than it should be.

[@patrick6116]

I think this video is really missing the most important point. Making a city liveable is a purely political decision and has nothing to do with street design. Zurich's and Copenhagen's inner cities were parking lots in the 70s and 80s, and then they decided that cars don't belong in the inner cities and changed it. This requires political will and most importantly politicians that are independent of the car lobby. Just a fun fact. A Person in Switzerland (probably comparable to the US) pays roughly half a million dollars in their life to own a car. Obviously, there is a lot of interest to keep cars as the primary means of transport. In the US it's even worse than here because public transport is basically inexistent.

[@toddfarkman2177]

The reason the US has grids is that they are more modern cities. All those European cities have been around for centuries. Their roads are meandering and random based on paths built back in the dark ages. As a foreigner, you easily get lost without maps. And sometimes come to tunnels too small for your car. I'm guessing most Europeans don't have cars nor drive often. So the roads don't matter as much. I'm in Detroit and we have roads in a grid. And it's awesome for driving. You have roads that either go north/south or east/west. So you always know where you are and how to get somewhere. It is IDEAL FOR DRIVING. It is ideal for modern living where people live in houses, not apartments. It allows for spreading out populations. I think people like those cities in Europe DESPITE their crappy road systems. Rather they like them because of the culture and homogeneity of people. How anyone can surmise that organized and well-conceived roads are worse than hodgepodge constantly-changing-direction roads is laughable. Next you're going to make the argument that houses made out of mud and grass are superior to skyscrappers made out of steels and concrete.

[@Kylefassbinderful]

Alameda, CA is an island off the coast of Oakland and imo it has the best grid for streets. It's very easy to navigate without a map or GPS. There's almost no dead ends.

[@HelloWorld-yq9yy]

Grids are amazing and not the problem: -it’s easy to take alternate routes, not conjugating one route. Easy to take the fastest route

[@mechantl0up]

My home city (Tampere) has a grid centre, and it is the most livable and functional city I have ever lived in. The centre is walkable, has good public transit, and also permits cars, yet is not cramped despite having high density by local standards. No, grids are not a problem. Helsinki, the here mentioned non-grid city, has a centre that is jammed with traffic, is losing its relevance to commerce and pedestrians ( by the city’s own admission), is noisy and congested despite having been in decline for years now, and is difficult to navigate by foot or to find anything in because too many and too far-in-between street crossings and because at the same time nothing is shaped logically. Even public transit does not help, since all traffic is forced into long winding conduits that get congested with bith pedestrians and non-pedestrians alike. Copenhagen has this problem, too. A grid would help. If I were to plan a city, I would make it a grid. Obviously. No other structure can be better based on geometry.

[@jouaienttoi]

The reason isn't grids, it is cars and urban sprawl. Grids are extremely efficient and easy to navigate. This video and several others you have made recently are starting to show you're not doing a lot of proper research on the topic. Rather you start with an preconceived bias or idea and run with it.

[@Apeshaft]

Didn't the Roman Empire use a grid system when they planned new towns, cities and settlements? They didn't have any problems with gridlock or serious car accidents. They were really ahead of their time. And instead of cars, they had slaves. And more slaves. And zero cars.

[@lmnop29]

I may be biased cuz I'm from Chicago lol, but I prefer a grid system for navigation to a city like Boston. Trying to walk or bike in Boston is not intuitive at all, and quite frustrating.

[@iliya-malecki]

I've lived in a non-grid European city for half a year, and I am frequently shaking in anger because I'm still physically unable to get from A to B without google maps. Even with maps, I often take a 30-degree turn instead of 60 or vice versa; it is a terrible experience. Apart from wasting hours upon hours of life and a bunch of money, the lack of a grid means one more problem: by knowing a direction, you cant know your path. If your favorite bakery is to the south, it doesn’t mean you have to go south to get there. It may very well be so that you have to make a silly loop-the-loop around the "block" over bridges, under bridges, through roundabouts, and through non-euclidean space just to get your croissant.

[@lucastang1486]

Melbourne used to dominate the liveability ranking until the pandemic, and it is basically a grid. The difference is Melbourne has trams running along its mostly straight streets.

[@holger_p]

A grid considers everything equal, there is not really a center. So it kind of makes an entire district, the center, the downtown. But what people like in characteristics of a city, is to have a central spot for orientation. The Marketplace, the city hall, the church. That's the core of every single city or even village in Europe. Where do the bus lines go to, where do the merchants go to, it's the marketplace, you know where to meet people.

[@rjtavares1480]

Boston is probably the only big city in the US that isn't on a grid system and has adequate public transport making it the most European city in terms of transportation infrastructure, which is ironic cause the US started fighting the American Revolution to get rid of European influence around Boston.

[@charliecalixto4013]

I honestly think that the lack of a grid system makes walking more hostile, and more difficult to live in. I grew up in NYC, I don't need my phone to know which street to walk to if I know the corresponding avenue letter and street number. Being that it was a grid, I could walk in one straight fluid way to my destination at ease. When I was spending sometime at London, I noticed that it was much more difficult to get from point a to point b. The street crossing are more aggressive with fences that force you to cross at a direct point, it was hard to differentiate between street names, roads were only straight for a certain distance. In NYC I could walk in any direction and manage to get back by looking at the street names, but here in London you would need to follow the same path from where you came from as each street is different. It felt so hostile to walk in London that I felt forced to take public transportation for walks that would be convenient in NYC

[@aloe704]

*Cities like Chicago and Minneapolis are FANTASTIC when it comes to car transportation unlike Dallas and Charlotte*

[@karsthalen5381]

Cities should not me made for cars.

[@aloe704]

@@karsthalen5381 Yes they should be*

[@karsthalen5381]

@@aloe704 No. Not at all. 1. Cars are polluting. In a place with many people it’s important to keep the air clean. Public transport is more sustainable. 2. Cars take in loads of space. A train or subway can transport so many more people taking in a lot less space. 3. Parking lots make up for like half the surface of the American cities. 4. A system with cycling is way more efficient. Taking people out of cars and putting them on bikes doesn’t only make them go from A to B quicker because they aren’t stuck in traffic jams, they also prevent traffic jams from happening. This way, the cars that do necessarily need to enter the city for emergencies or because they LIVE there, can go from A to B way faster. I hope that sums it up. Believe me, I live close to a city designed for predominantly cycling and also allowing but not supporting cars to go in. It’s so efficient.

[@aloe704]

@@karsthalen5381 My bad, I misread the earlier comment, I agree. for some reason I thought you were talking about all transportation

[@karsthalen5381]

@@aloe704 Okay my bad

[@1xm_mx1]

A hybrid of grids with connected radial design and better city block design, combined with road designs to allow walkable and bike-able cities, better public transport connections, and lined with green belts would work.

[@bornofashes]

I still love living here and find it easier to navigate than other cities.

[@Pan_Schaboszczak]

I live in Łódź, 3rd biggest city in Poland. When in 18th century it was built from small village, grid system was used. Fortunately, when it grew bigger and bigger, main streets were widened, some smaller ones were made one-way, suburbs grew non-grid and we don't suffer such problems, showing that the problem is actually American way of thinking

[@IllusiveDude]

I actually like th grid system. Thanks to NYC grid system you'll be an expert in getting around the city in no time. I just wish there werent so many scaffolding and more accessible bikes lanes

[@dudoklasovity2093]

grid cities are awful design. everything is rectangular, same size, no decent square for people, boring, isolating and loud

[@deivclayton]

Grid cities exist all over the world, not just the US. The problems with US grid based cities have more to do with terrible zoning laws.

[@adrienrenaux6211]

One good thing with a grid is that it makes it really easy to do "unentanglement", when you design your city so that different modes of transport use different routes. You could take a narrower residential street parralel to a main street and turn it into a bike corridor easily

[@Cyrus992]

What about near grid streets like Historic Boston? Beats culdesacs! Roundabout?

[@jimethota]

Melbourne was rated #1 liveable city multiple times and it has a rigid grid.

[@toddfarkman2177]

Have you EVER been to America? LOL. There is an OBVIOUS difference between each specified road and their capacity. We have different levels of roads. From huge interstates that can have 4 lanes and travel up to 75 MPH to an intrastate to local highways to local residential streets. They are all well established as being different. No one would confuse a local highway with a residential street. As for having more accidents with more intersections, LOL, well that may be the price you pay for not sticking every car on THE SAME ROAD. LMFAO. I'm sure if you have ONE road in your town, you'll have fewer accidents. You probably also have more traffic jams and congestion. And longer time-to-arrivals. If any place has messed up road designations, it's Europe. You have either the Autobahn or not-the-Autobahn.

[@Tore_Lund]

During lockdown, it became obvious that our congestion problems in Copenhagen are caused by commuters. Without them the streets were deserted and only 1 in 3 parking spots occupied. The reason is Denmark subsidize commuters for driving by an amount several times larger than gasoline cost for the distance driven..

[@afroteacher]

First off, I appreciate the love for Chicago and negatively for the information in the video. I wasn't sure if it was my bias, but I wasn't impressed with what was presented, and it's good to see that I wasn't the only one. 😅

[@stevenwiggins9267]

Since I live in a grid city I think the best approach is lots of busses. But our politicians are in love with the sexiness of light rail even though they carry far fewer people.

[@NortherlyK]

I'd love to see a comparison of grids in the US compared to grids in other cities. You briefly mentioned Barcelona and it would be great to have more of a side by side comparison: with categories like pedestrian/bike friendly paths, consistent maintenance, public transit, and zoning. You mention the prevalence of electric cars; they aren't as ubiquitous in the US as they are in other countries. I'm always surprised to see a car charging station. You make a valid point that most gridded cities are in the US, but it seems like culture is really a big contributor and our proclivity for the grid a byproduct.

[@curtisnewton895]

technicaly speaking, the best patterns are found in nature, like in leafs, which use a fractal pattern of vains.

[@josh33172]

I lived in Miami, been to Copenhagen (top of the list), have family there...family in Chicago....family in Paris as well. The absolute #1 aspect that plagues the US, grid city planning and transportation infrastructure is public transport (or lack there of). This includes (protected) bike lanes and sidewalks. That is really it. Ever go to Madrid, pretty reasonable public infrastructure grid with the Metro and Renfe (train) except locals will tell you that walking anywhere 1.2km (3/4mi.) or less you're better off walking since its always going to take you 200-300m out of the way at the minimum which is 1/3rd the distance. Not only that, getting to places means you're constantly walking around buildings, and only get an actual break if there's a public green space. Giving directions to go anywhere is going to be 5 rights, 4 lefts and circling around things which is confusing if you don't natively speak the same language. So, I will say that having a metro system even if you have to walk a short bit of the journey on foot is better than what you have to deal with by car. And, in cities like Amsterdam/Copenhagen and such that are very very bike friendly, it's truly amazing, efficient and great for the environment, but you will have to fire up your GPS to go most places unless you have a lot of experience in the city. The perfect example (and I know it's a city built on water) but navigating the smaller streets in Venice is absolutely horrible if you want to say leave the Santa Lucia train station and want to go to the Leonardo da Vinci museum. There is not a straight line, straight path, public transport is out of the question, and you will absolutely need to fire up Wayz or Google maps to get from point A-to-B. At least in the US, someone can say "Just go down this road 5 streets (or blocks) until you see 1st Ave and go right. Make a left on Jefferson, and it be two blocks down on your right" or something along those lines......literally anyone can learn navigating a US city in a fraction of the time than it takes for practically any EU city. ....but this is just an American that's lived in EU (Belgium) for over a decade now. I've learned to live with it, but I've also learned to live with a GPS and can read maps quite competently.

[@soup5174]

-40 in the winter i dont think many people want to bike here lol, grids are also easy to navigate and you don't have to know street names because they are numbers that go up or down depending on where you are headed

[@johndekker509]

A history professor told the class once that he would always get lost in more modern cities with a grid plan rather than historical cities whose streets were more jumbled. His reasoning was that with modern grid cities, the important buildings were build all over the city and thus didn't had a planning for those buildings. In contrast with more older historical cities, he named Boston as a example, were more organic grown cities building surrounding the important buildings of the time, like churches or mayor buildings. This created a road network that was more centralised towards these buildings which would always be in the center. This is of course just an anecdote, but as someone who likes to take a lot of strolls I can symphathize with these feeling.

[@man_on_wheelz]

Meh, say what you will about a grid, but living in the Chicagoland area myself, I like being able to quickly identify where something is and how to get there from my current location without needing a GPS, only cross streets. I could be on the far north end of the city and know exactly how to get to an intersection on the far south end because one of the streets is probably up here where I am already! Half the battle is already done. And here in Chicago, for me, the south side is even easier to figure out because the street names are numbered in order going south. Tell me 31st st and tell me 95th st I now know you’re talking about destinations at least 64 city blocks apart. And even better, 8 blocks equal a mile, helps calculate how far something is too. Try figuring all that out on your own on those curly, twisty, windy roads.

[@pixelhistoricalwarriors]

L video Grid gang represent

[@NAGaming513]

"I'd say so" Proceeds to not explain why he thinks so but rather why it originally turned into a grid system.

[@ojomaze7777]

Mand, jeg har egentlig lidt ondt af OBF. Hans videoer er visuelt smukke, og handler om emner, jeg interesserer mig for. Men, i næsten hver og en af hans videoer er der en eller flere små ting han har overset (eller undgået at putte i videoen) som ruinerer hele oplevelsen for mig, heh. Jeg ønsker virkelig at nyde hans content, og jeg ser altid frem til nye uploads. Jeg synes bare det er lidt trist at sådan noget her sker så ofteeee

[@Noisy_Cricket]

The cities with grids are less livable because they are in North America, not because they are grids.

[@vincedavid7256]

Just for fun, let's add another parameter that has nothing to do how livable a city is and that would be flatness. Chicago is very flat whereas, say Seattle or San Francisco is hilly. I'm sure there must be other cities even more hilly. Would flatness that makes travel easy by not having to go uphill or downhill esp during wet or icy conditions make a city less livable? Similarly a grid makes navigation easier esp in an unfamiliar part of the city esp during night and/or foggy conditions. Merely recognizing the street name on the south side that one is familiar with on the north side instantly gives one an idea of where they are. How does this not make it more livable being able to travel further from one's familiar neighborhood and explore more distant parts of the city? Or the ease of giving someone directions. A gird is not an issue, but many other factors are, including proritizing too many streets for cars, or not having better public transportation or due to food desserts, insufficient parks and green space, or having giant malls with huge parking lots vs small neighborhood retail stores that are walkable and not having options for a third place (not work, not one's house) where people can hang out and socialize for free (not a bar, cafe or restaurant) year round (not a.park ij winter) available anytime and without severe restrictions (not a library). Such places have been disappearing.

[@afriendlydanishguy5280]

mange tak for det gode arbejde , du er for vild tak tak tak

[@sudhakarkanapata7185]

I am an indian, was in denver once. Tried to go for a run on road and it was nightmare thanks to these intersections.

[@mrfacques]

This doesn’t make sense. Your argument is based on illusory correlation, as you point out in the video. Of course, the urban built environment has an impact on quality of life, but there are more important things, such as access to services, good quality housing, low crime. I live in the north side of Chicago, which has all of those, and I can attest that this is one of the most livable places to live in the world. I know because I’ve lived in Bristol and Milan before, and I’ve traveled extensively throughout the US, Western Europe, Australia and NZ. Obviously, much of the city does lack those aforementioned things, but that’s the result of policy failures and other socioeconomic factors that are completely unrelated to how the streets structure is organized

[@sjajsjsja4523]

No, they're not. Stop making videos about topics you're uninformed about.

[@philkeh]

I dont like US cities usually simply becasue of the insane traffic. Its an absolutley horrible vibe there with these millions of cars. Btw I visited Copenhagen. What a city! This is how a flat city should be planned and designed: with efficient cycling infrastructure. Impossible in the US. People just got brainwashed that a life without a car is useless. Fo me its: a city planned with idea that every citizen needs a car, is useless.

[@curious5887]

One of the point where you said Grid Cities is inflexible is pretty ignorant, look at San Francisco, and Seattle, these cities are built on top of a hill, but they’re very much a grid, idk why you said that, it seems to me you never visit either two of these city

[@loveshgarg5672]

I think Chandigarh designed by Le corb could have a great example for this. Grid plan with V7 street hierarchy and continuous network of green all across the city makes it worth studying.

[@blue_avocado4086]

I feel like Chicago is actually a very bad example for this video because it does not follow the typical American grid, despite being a grid. As someone who has lived in Miami, NYC, Chicago, and several Asian and European cities, the Miami and NYC grids are absolutely horrid. Meanwhile, Chicago's use of alleyways, its distinction between tree-lined residential streets and main arteries, and extensive green spaces means that it is a much greener, pleasant, bikeable, and pedestrian-friendly city. Yes, the grid isn't ideal for traffic, but you don't need a car in Chicago unless you are out in the suburbs. (This is not to say there aren't better models than a grid, but Chicago's grid is much better executed than most grid cities.)

[@emtello3808]

okay but why is NYC grid so good compared to other cities with the same format

[@Pystro]

While most commenters blame cars and bad (i.e. single-use) zoning (which probably do contribute more than the street design itself), and the video blames the grid, almost none of the points mentioned in the video are caused by the grid, they are just correlated: 4:52 The street widths have not been chosen sensibly. This isn't a problem with the grid itself, but with the planners' mindset of accommodating all possible future uses (or just laziness) - instead of properly choosing the street widths in the grid for each block separately. Correlated to the grid (caused by the same design goals), but not caused by it. 5:32 I can't really believe that the grid is the cause for the high ratio of asphalt to usable land. In fact, if you have a known lot depth that you want to accommodate (for example most mid-rise buildings built is the last decades are exactly wide enough for the parking garage in their basement - or if you play Cities:Skylines, that width is 4 zoning tiles), putting them back to back as close as possible directly leads to parallel streets. And then you'll need cross streets at short enough intervals to not choke the traffic that wants to move between those streets. I don't see how anything could have a better ratio of available land to road length (unless you do away with the requirement that all lots have road access). But again, the minimum overall length of streets only leads to the minimum asphalted area if you build your streets with the minimum suitable width - which the US just doesn't do. 5:53 I can't really believe that cities with grids trap MORE heat. Long straight roads are perfect for wind at ground level to reach very high speeds. I would rather assume that aligning streets in N-S and W-E directions (which usually comes with grids) somehow allows the sun to shine into those urban canyons more easily, where it can heat up the almost perfectly radiation-absorbing asphalt. I would like to see a comparison where they compare grids aligned along the cardinal directions with grids at an angle closer to 45°. Or maybe it's just another consequence of making most of the streets too wide, as in the above 2 points. 4:23 "The grid" creates ONLY intersections where all roads continue at 180° (and turn at 90°), which is still true for high-capacity roads in non-gridded cities, but only for MOST of their intersections. This is bad for high-speed (i.e. motorized) traffic safety because it encourages most people to go through the intersection at full speed on a green, increasing the risk of rear-ending the vehicles that have to slow down to turn. (This is also a problem with high-speed roads that have a lot of driveways.) This is very much a problem of the (rectangular) grid, but for example wouldn't happen in a honeycomb grid. Thus I'm not sure if I would call this a problem of grids in general, but since nobody does non-rectangular grids, it's a problem with all the grids we have. 5:18 Yes, the fact that the grid doesn't conform to the terrain IS a problem of the grid design. But that's only a problem because the grid is usually plotted out to span the whole city. If you had a gentle slope, you could take a local chunk of the grid, rotate it so that the streets are at a 45° angle to the contour lines, and you'd end up with streets that have a reasonably low grade. 6:25 Have you looked at cul-de-sac suburban neighborhoods? They have the same problems. In fact, monotonicity doesn't come from the streets itself, but from the buildings that are put onto it (when do you ever gaze at the street instead of at what's alongside it?). Which is just something that the US is really bad at, where you'll have zoning codes that regulate everything down to how many accessory dwelling units and front doors can be on a property. But many buildings still fail to "address the public realm" as Charles Marohn from Strong Towns puts it. So, in conclusion only 2 problems with grids themselves, the rest are problems of US city planning unrelated to the grid.

[@TheMusiclover500]

Basically any ranking at all would rank Boston as the most walkable & bikable city in the US, as well as being more expensive than Miami, DC, NY. And there’s like one grided neighborhood. And there’s a ton of urban parks & boulevards @ intersections & crossroads Edit: typed this before 6:33 noted Boston’s back bay & so it being more interesting because of the way it mixed with the medieval grid; furthering my point 😂

[@rex_8618]

I refuse to believe that 'liveability' depends on city design

[@Djpauly_bobo]

Pretty sure crime, access to education and healthcare put quite a dent on some of those grid cities' liveability scores. Would be interesting to see how orderly non-us cities compare.

[@macaron3141592653]

Barcelona has one of the strictest grids in the world, and its specifically the grid part that gets the most praise amongst urbanists. Grids makes sense when you need to build quickly and efficiently. Travel is predictable and straightforward. The things that make American cities less livable have nothing to do with grids.

[@ethanrichter272]

The problem is that in North American cities, where grid designs are common, people who live in the cities are generally poorer, whereas the middle and upper classes tend to live in the suburbs. Suburbs, at least in the North American sense, don’t really exist in the rest of the world, and so the residents of cities tend to be wealthier, and thus, more livable

[@robertcarver7870]

What about Adelaide, South Australia?! Perfect grid city and rated one of the most liveable cities in the world

[@evrtt_trn]

i love grids. i mostly reside in hanoi, where the center districts are built in grid systems by the colonial authorities. these areas see much fewer traffic jams compared to the surrounding, post-grid districts, where there are there are less roads + less connection between roads so vehicles have few alternatives and just cram into the same few arteries. i think the problem is not just the grids themselves, as evidenced by barcelona, but also the many other factors that make urban design in the u.s. a mess.

[@suyogdani2702]

Giving Henry Ford the credit for mass producing cars is like giving credit to the guy who made the subtitles for a movie. Yes subtitles and mass production is helpful, bit they wouldn't exist with the video and cars, respectively.

[@NetAndyCz]

I think that grid with a little bit of adjustments is not any worse than non-grid design. It is a case of mere correlation.

[@benwarped7272]

living in Chicago has been terrible, its such a large mass of land with hugely inefficient road systems. CTA is the worst.

[@christianflor1394]

I come from a small grid city. One of the reasons for grid city's popularity was that you could fire cannons inside the city. This made it much easier to stop protestors, invaders, pirates or protestors. Fun fact.

[@evelk5233]

The grid system in Chicago exists to help drivers figure out how to get around.

[@eruno_]

Sapporo and Kyoto are perfect grid cities.

[@SierraRamblesALot]

The grid system is nice to have but it shows that we have a constant reliance on vehicles. The United States (especially in the north east where roads are older and not gridded) just needs to invest in better infrastructure and more public transportation as well as rails that run between major cities

[@Manuel-gk3rv]

I genuinely thought I was subscribed to you for ages, but I guess I wasn't. Your reminder at the end to subscribed got you a new one this time :)