Why Cities With Grids Are Terribly Designed

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Why Cities With Grids Are Terribly Designed
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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/2018/urban-heat-...
Grammenos, F. (2016, December 20). A grid balancing act for vibrant, varied, and sustainable places. Planetizen Features. Retrieved April 22, 2022, from www.planetizen.com/node/90338...
Grammenos, F. (n.d.). Beloved and abandoned: A platting named Portland. Planetizen Features. Retrieved October 19, 2009, from www.planetizen.com/node/41290
Grammenos, F. (n.d.). Choosing a grid, or not. Planetizen Features. Retrieved February 14, 2012, from www.planetizen.com/node/54477
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.com/news/articl...
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.com/city-life/...

[@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".

[@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?

[@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 ...

[@gardenshine.]

If you continue your analysis to the least gridded cities in US and Canada i guarantee you will see lower livability than NY, Chicago, etc. Its not a grid thing, its a car and lack of public transit thing.

[@jamescoulson7729]

That’s the thing Vancouver is one of the most gridded cities, yet has one of the best public transit, walkable and bikeable environments in North America, and it is considered on most lists as one of the most livable cities.

[@KyleTremblayTitularKtrey]

@@jamescoulson7729 exactly. As a vancouver resident I mostly laughed at this video.

[@primitivestudio1]

Agreed. Better mass transit. San Francisco has grid and I don't mind public transport. But we are in car society. So hey to grid with is expressways

[@michaelf7093]

Minneapolis is regarded as one of the most livable cities in the US, despite its grid.

[@Jay-jq6bl]

@@AlexBesogonov Commute time isn't the end all and be all, when all you see out your window is concrete. I'll add, that extra time is likely spent walking, which is good for your health. I'm in much better shape when living in Europe because of that, so it's not like it's wasted time, unlike sitting on my ass at red lights. Also, do those numbers include the time to find parking?

[@machtmann2881]

Idk as a pedestrian, it's really easy to understand grid designs. I don't get lost in Manhattan because the grid system plus the naming convention of streets make it really easy to navigate and also understand the metro. I just wish there weren't so many cars around.

[@thetaomega7816]

this isn´t a relevant point since we use google maps lol. Before that it was a big positive aswell

[@machtmann2881]

@@thetaomega7816 The point really is for ease of navigation. I can use Google Maps for everything but then I have to pull out the phone for everything and I'm always self-conscious about that, especially on vacation where I risk pickpocketing. Grids plus mixed zoning also make things closer. In a cul-de-sac for comparison, places that should have a direct path to each other often don't.

[@abyrupus]

The wheel-and-spokes design is easier to navigate as you have natural points of reference. If you are lost, all roads would lead to the center of the neighborhood, and you just have to have to follow visual cues - where the buildings get taller, traffic gets denser etc. and you will reach the bus stop, train station etc. And from the neighborhood/district center there will be a direct bus/train to the city-center always, from which you can decide on your destination. I was in Tokyo and didn't even need to know the names of streets. Just look around and naturally walk towards where all streets are converging.

[@eliscanfield3913]

Cleveland has a lot of streets that appear and disappear. Maybe the street after East 3rd is East 4th on this street, but a block north & it's East 3rd, then East 6th. I'm still not sure where East 5th is.

[@machtmann2881]

@@abyrupus Oh maybe this channel talks about that. It wasn't mentioned in this video but I see a video on Tokyo suggested to me so maybe it's there 👍

[@highlyconfused6493]

Sounds to me that grids aren't the problem, but that it's the usual suspects that make American cities less livable 1: Terrible zoning 2: Terrible Public transit 3: Absolute dominance of cars as a means of transport

[@JustATrippyDuck]

^ this

[@dwadsworth125]

Agreed. I am from a southern US city without much of a grid (outside of downtown) and just moved to a city with an expansive grid. IMO the grid makes the city more livable and actually facilitates walking and public transit use. It's easy to know directionality and location within the city and arterial roadways are systematically placed every 5-10 blocks (which i am hopeful will shift to more robust public transit corridors in the future). If the grid has a few diagonal streets, all the better. Back where i am from, the lack of grid actually decreases walkability due to the sporadic directionality and lack of consistent connectivity between roadways

[@gabrierz]

Yeah but especially 3. is just a product of this design. The US ist designed for cars not for humans. Streets are big and almost no footpaths.

[@realtimestatic]

Cars make it horrible to walk around

[@brokenrecord3095]

@@gabrierz a lot of these grid cities were laid out before the automobile, so it's unlikely they were designed for something not yet invented. I'd say it's true that cars have co-opted the grid design, and newer city design is obviously primarily for cars.

[@CarlNiemi]

Grids are bad if we assume that every street in the grid has to be made for cars. Grids can be extremely efficient and pleasant for pedestrians and cyclists if car traffic is kept to an absolute minimum or eliminated where possible.

[@stairwaytoholiday]

Isn't that kind of how Barcelona is coordinated or am I thinking of another city? I think there's one in Spain that I always see pictures of

[@Larsoff]

Yeah grids go HARD. They are awesome except car dependant grids are absolutely not poggers and we gotta compose some yummy road diets

[@SylvieRousseau]

Yes I'm surprised the author didn't talk about walkability, a key benefit of grids. This helps pedestrians navigate, and enhances social connection because everything (housing, commerce, services) is more accessible.

[@joaodorjmanolo]

@@stairwaytoholiday People that say Barcelona superblocks are perfect never lived in Barcelona. Yes, there are a lot of good things in the city, and it's quite efficient to humans, instead of cars, but on summer the heat is overwhelming, and the city isn't soundproof, so, in a busy friday you'll listen a loud drunk speaking or singing, and when tourist time occurs, it's impossible to simply walk on the streets as it get packed with people, so this non-friendly car walkable city kinda fails in tourism seasons. But the city itself is really beautiful tho. So...

[@samuelsaksznajder6536]

@@Larsoff yeah. For sure, imo grids are actually kinda better for walking/biking/ getting around, its when cars start being driven on the grids that they start to get shitty

[@edwardtyl]

The only definitive points I actually see are: 1) bad for airflow and environment 2) aesthetically boring. The rest it seems are just American issues (cars), and wouldn't affect grid designs in another country that tackles urban management better with more pedestrian focused policies. Also, the 2 points above could probably be solved with minor angle imperfections and 45 degree street changes, while still retaining the other advantages of a grid design

[@steverempel8584]

Not all grids are aesthetically boring, Manhattan, Downtown Chicago, San Fransisco, and Barcelona are all beautiful. If your city is aesthetically interesting, a grid won't change that, but a grid could make a boring city feel more boring.

[@superskrub4209]

I'd had loved explanation or quantification for "bad airflow". What about the urban canyon effect?

[@benjaminlamey3591]

did you have a look at Hausmanian buildings in Paris ? the uniformity gives it some style, that is undeniable. Regarding the airflow and the heat island effect, I would say that several grided cities do not show that, it is probably more a problem of air conditioning and no room for green or shadow ... looking at some colonial cities like Havanna, Grenada in Nicaragua, Valladolid in Yucatan, the problem is definitely not as big ...

[@edwardtyl]

Ok clearly there is some disagreement on the aesthetics -- this can be up to personal taste, and maybe some of this referenced in the video is once again mostly an American problem lol. Like I said in my comment as well, the airflow and environment can be adjusted depending on the grid design.

[@edwardtyl]

Seems once again these city issue videos end up mostly being about how American cities are just poorly designed and managed. Anyone know a channel that offers more subtle improvements for cities in Europe that skip over the American city issues?

[@TristanCleveland]

Urban planner here. I'm afraid this video is conceptually confused. All of those "most livable cities" have a grid in the sense that they have small blocks. A grid of small blocks is absolutely essential to support walkability and transit, whether they are straight or organic. Yes, if the grid is straight, with 90 degree turns, it can look a bit boring - the video's one legitimate point - but these grids can still support high levels of livability, as in Vancouver, Portland, San Francisco, New York, Barcelona, and many other cities. As for the grids that do have problems, the video got the issue precisely backwards. If Chicago has a problem, it's not that it treats streets as identical. (It doesn't). The trouble is that it excessively prioritizes traffic on many streets instead of human comfort. One of the biggest barriers to creating livable cities today is that streets are classified as avenues, collectors, or locals. On avenues and collectors, it's extremely difficult to design people-friendly streets, because engineers say they are intended for moving cars. As for safety, no, the grid is not the primary source of danger. High speed streets with long blocks are far more dangerous, as they encourage people to cross mid-block. That being said, I haven't looked at that one study. The biggest barrier to livability that many cities face today is the lack of a grid - whether straight or organic. I'd like to solve that problem. This video didn't help.

[@aliquewilliams3080]

Your entire notion of "livable" revolves around how walkability the streets are, which is nonsensical. Nonetheless, use walkability instead to simplify things.

[@TristanCleveland]

@@aliquewilliams3080 Why is that nonsensical? It's difficult to create lively, desirable streets and parks without also making them walkable.

[@ianharris3502]

@@aliquewilliams3080 walkability is absolutely synonymous with livability.

[@jpmarques1106]

Whathever the gov put his hands, it will get whorst. Let the city expand by itself...

[@Spido68_the_spectator]

The traffic problems of grids are caused by a total absence of road hierarchy. Arterials could be made by removing 67% of intersections on a big enough road, de - zoning buildings, and then put on some bus + tram lanes, bike paths, wide sidewalks.

[@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.

[@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.

[@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.

[@chillin_like_bob_dillan6499]

Grids aren’t the problem, it’s car-centric planning that’s the problem. You wouldn’t call vast urban sprawl with cul-de-sacs and curved streets livable, because they’re based around cars. Grids were livable before cars because there was good public transport, and the city was based around people. Grids don’t make a city any worse than another one, it’s how good public transit is and how pedestrian-friendly it is.

[@zenozeno8655]

On point 👉

[@honeycomblord9384]

Chicago and Manhattan may be gridded, but at the same time, they're also some of the few places where pretty huge portions of the population don't even have a car.

[@GuidoHaverkort]

Your points are valid but grids still suck. They are still extremely inefficient for the car traffic that remains and highly unsafe

[@staropramen478]

@@GuidoHaverkort Then don't plan your city around cars. Look at Copenhagen it's full of grid structure but a ton of people walk and bike there because the roads are built for it plus they have way better public transport than most American cities.

[@roger5059]

Even with public transport, you still need some larger streets (with rails) and other smaller ones. These streets should also be oriented at, from or parallel to the city center rather than being based of a coordinate system, or you would have to do a zig-zag course if you want to travel for example northeast. Also, as mentioned in the video, with the grid system you need a lot more streets on the same area, which also means that as a pedestrian, you have to cross a lot more roads.

[@benshaughnessy2275]

The grid system in Chicago makes the city more walkable/ bikeable, as the grid has a system that makes it easy to find safe streets to use without a car.

[@beyondspace8875]

I don't know how you've arrived at this conclusion, grid designs really aren't problems, cars are

[@urbanistgod]

No they are not.

[@Ginkoman2]

both are a problem. but yeah, cars are the bigger one.

[@empirestate8791]

The grid is actually one of the best innovations in city planning history. It's simple and efficient to use, and it can easily be adapted to accommodate large developments by simply merging blocks. You can reduce the number of intersections and stoplights on major thoroughfares by simply prohibiting left turns onto and from minor streets. Creating car-lite superblocks is also very easy. It seems like other bad aspects of city planning, like restrictive zoning & car-centric design, are much more at fault.

[@honeycomblord9384]

So, would a superblock be like taking four regular blocks, and making the streets in between those car-free? If so, sounds awesome!

[@empirestate8791]

@@honeycomblord9384 yep, exactly that. just like through traffic generally doesn't go through suburban subdivision, it won't be allowed on streets inside a superblock. to get from one superblock to another, you must take the arterial roads bordering the superblock.

[@kingsand999]

Agreed. It seemed like the guy had an agenda to paint American cities negatively. Some of his arguments are a stretch

[@KyleTremblayTitularKtrey]

Yeah this vid is basically nonesense he's bashing grids cause he wants to bash grids not because grids are know to fuck cities up.

[@kingsand999]

@@KyleTremblayTitularKtrey precisely. From his other videos I can see that he has a huge anti-american agenda

[@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?

[@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

[@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.

[@pritapp788]

@@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.

[@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

[@kazhamo]

Correlation doesn't imply causation. The grid is not the problem, as many others have already pointed out.

[@danepabilonia5647]

ALL cities need MORE public transportation. I hate it when they focus on roadways for cars when the government could literally just make a series of railways, trams etc. Less pollution and Congestion (But bad for introverts)

[@betula2137]

I am a rural introvert and I support this message.

[@elijahmikhail4566]

In the ideal scenario, people who don’t want to use public transport would still have the option to drive, while in the current state of many cities, people who don’t want to drive are forced to.

[@betula2137]

@@elijahmikhail4566 Autolow and bike-transit model is useful.

[@EnjoyFirefighting]

at a point where rush hour doesn't mean instant traffic jam, but rather light to moderate traffic, I think the state of public transit and bike infrastructure is sufficient

[@romanis9596]

Very bad for introverts. I personally hate riding on public transport. Even if we had it I would still use my car. But I agree that the option to do so is necessary.

[@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.

[@21mozzie]

I just looked up the 2021 city liveability index that appears on Wikipedia, which is completely different to your list. Of the top five most liveable cities in that index, Osaka, Adelaide and Wellington strike me as pretty grid like cities. A lot of other cities in the list are also pretty grid like. I suspect that you just happen to have chosen a list that is topped by non-grid like cities.

[@staropramen478]

The reason they don't score high on that grid metric is because their suburbs look different. The inner cities have grid structures yet they are the areas that has the most life so I don't really understand the point of this video. The biggest difference between European and American cities (in general) is that the downtowns in the US are small and boring business parks with very little life after work hours.

[@davidrenton]

@@staropramen478 i have to disagree in line with my prior comment, having lived in Taipei, it's a very Grid based city, with very identical blocks from pretty much the same time period due to the nature of it's expansion after the Chinese Civil War. In Fact most cities in Taiwan use exactly the same building type, i.e 5 stories apartment blocks, with balconies a lot of times completely barred , even the doors are very similar and the same very not that pleasant materials. Tokyo and most Japanese cities are the same , there tends to be little variety in the housing and it work's to an extent but for the love of me i don't know why, because objectivity the buildings are ugly and bland with electrical cables hanging over the streets, and AC units everywhere. Objectivity Tokyo is kinda an ugly city , due to the war, it's endless not very imaginative, rectangle mid 70's/80's typical urban developments. But somehow Tokyo doesn't come of as Ugly , it's very weird, put all these bland buildings together but the sum of it's part is greater. the most 'beautiful' cities in E Asia tend to be places like Shanghai and HK, because they mix multiple time periods, multiple influences and you get these weird East/West mashups. the interesting thing about Taiwan, the beautiful Bits , i.e nice ornate buildings, good tree lined roads where built by the Japanese as it's colonial power, the ugly bit's where built by the KMT(Chinese Nationalists) who saw their stay in Taiwan as short term and didn't bother.

[@udishomer5852]

@@davidrenton At least Taipei has a very good public transportation system and many parks, which makes it a nice place to live.

[@davidrenton]

@@udishomer5852 i love Taipei but I'm not sure it's the best place to live , it's congested, very expensive, very polluted , I love the chaos of it, it's an interesting place but I'm surprised it made the list.

[@AlecSchwengler]

As another reply noted, Taipei is a grid city. But the way he is measuring grids doesn’t capture Taipei’s grid, since each neighborhood has its own grid to accommodate local terrain (mountains & rivers). So the grids don’t line up evenly, but overall it is still a gridded city.

[@rickieg9870]

I lived in Chicago for about 5 years and was familiar with it within weeks. Loved living there and would go back in a heart beat if I could.

[@JesseLegend149]

what's stopping you from going back?

[@rickieg9870]

@@JesseLegend149 work

[@jackprather81]

I will say that when I moved to Chicago as a young adult back in the 90s, the grid made it exceedingly easy for me to find the things I was looking for and as time went on also made it very easy to investigate neighborhoods more thoroughly on a whim. Simply by keeping my eyes on the address numbers, I could securely use a street I had never been on to see what was there while I was on my way and have zero worry about getting lost. Because of this I ended up finding some of my favorite restaurants and shops. Without the grid I would have been too concerned about accidentally veering off course and would never have found those great spots. Now keep in mind that I didn't own a car when I lived in Chicago, so I'm speaking from the vantage point of someone who walked or took the train everywhere he went. After I moved back east to a town without a grid I found that it became much more important to follow directions strictly for fear of a winding road taking me away from the part of town I had intended to be in. In towns like this I tend to wander much less often and end up only knowing the roads I need to know for practicality reasons. I know how to get to work and how to get home and maybe a few other places. It results in a much less rich knowledge of the town.

[@keki4578]

From the onset, the hypothesis of ‘livable’ depeding on grid structure is highly debatable. One look at the metric used would probably tell me it’s more correlated to work-life balance, pay, culture, etc. Flawed from the onset

[@Nick-nk5mf]

How does Madrid score so low? 0.019? There are so many different grids in Madrid, wasn't that like the entire appeal of the design? So because there are individual blocks of grids that are not all aligned on the same axis, it scores low on how "griddy" it is?

[@whispie.]

The grids in Madrid are mostly only in Salamanca neighborhood. All the city center and the suburbs are not grid

[@user-oz8zt6dn1b]

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

[@titanicbigship]

hi

[@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.

[@vice.nor.virtue]

Despite San Francisco having lots of colourful neighbourhoods I still got lost somewhere not far from The Mission because everything looked the same! I live in Berlin now, which is semi-gridular, but there is still the same problem in Schoneberg district cos everything was built with the same design and you can't tell one street from the next in some areas.

[@paleamigo8575]

You can't tell one street from the next other than it's "name"?!🤷‍♂️✌

[@timpauwels3734]

@@paleamigo8575 European streets are named after people, objects, events, professions or some other historical association; but they hardly ever reveal their location in the city. Navigation by street name is usually something only locals do (they know the names by heart) - so Europeans visiting America don’t think to navigate by using street numbers or counting blocks. I grew up with medieval cities as the norm. Navigation is based on “position relative to last visible church/cathedral /market square/river/bridge”.

[@machtmann2881]

That's what the graffiti is for in Berlin haha

[@steverempel8584]

When I visited Manhatten, finding out where to go became a Math problem: I need to go to 46th street & 7 avenue, and I'm currently at 35th street & 2nd avenue.... So 11 up and 5 across!

[@DisgruntledArtist]

My city has a grid setup and numerical street/avenue names, so as long as you know that north is increasing numbers and south is decreasing numbers (same with east vs west) you know roughly where you are no matter where you are -- and at the very least know which direction to start traveling in order to reach your objective. It's *extremely* easy and intuitive, IMO.

[@JoRdi-ul4xg]

Yet barcelona is an amazingly designed city right? More grid, less cars

[@EnjoyFirefighting]

I'd say there are quite some issues which all come together in American cities: - grid pattern - lack of public transit - if there's public transit: lack of connecting lines and services to cover the area, poor service through the day, poor reputation - zoning laws - wide-spread suburbs - people don't really have an option, they're forced to drive and thus create a hell amount of traffic

[@joestendel1111]

You people talk a lot of shit having never lived here

[@nickfielding5685]

It the culder sack that are the problem not the grid.

[@EnjoyFirefighting]

@@nickfielding5685 you mean cul-de-sac? they're a problem just like the grid is

[@Racko.]

You can thank car and oil lobbyist for intentionally making transit in the US garbage when back then it used to have one of the transit and passenger train systems in the world connecting every part of the country, but because back when cars where booming in the 30s and 50s they bought out all of the transit, trams, buses, and trains and replaced it all with roads so you'll buy even more cars, transit in the US doesn't suck due to lack of trying, it's purposely trash so you're forced to drive, thats what the lobbyist want

[@nickfielding5685]

@@Racko. the grid system made it easier to walk every where. The causer sakes made it hard to walk every which is why of most of the United States of Americans drivis check out surben hell two of the house behind each other. It takes 2 hours to walk between them and only 10 minutes to drive between them. The Dan-Thomas paricdoc most people choose the fastes route. Truth is the public transport in the United States was pretty good before WW2.

[@williamsmith1741]

What about Paris? I believe large sections of it are on a grid structure, built by Napoleon II, and those are some of the most iconic and beautiful streets in the world.

[@cielbie8251]

Paris is not nearly as grid-like as some american cities, if you compare a map of Paris to a map of new york. It still follows the "town center with everything else radiating outwards" kind of system

[@theviniso]

Beautiful city and streets for sure, but not really a grid, no. Far from it actually, just look at Paris from above, it's a city as chaotic as they come despite the large bouleavards.

[@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.

[@erandro]

Interesting video, but missing a lot of points about the grid system (the good points, for example, wind distribution in warm climates or shore line cities). I don't think grids are "the worst" and the argument in the beginning definitely doesn't prove that. In general a city is an evolving creature, so it's hard for urban planners to anticipate everything.

[@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.

[@fonzworthbentley7455]

Very interesting! I've lived in both Chicago and Minneapolis and I liked that it was pretty much impossible for me to get lost in either city. Also in Minneapolis, the roads still conform to the many lakes and rivers

[@boogkitty]

Although very small compared to other cities, I would argue that Melbourne is an exception. The CBD is a grid and it works incredibly well is very easy to get around. Sydney on the other hand, may have made top 10 most livable cities recently, but its a shit-show to get around compared to Melbourne. Also, Melbourne won most livable city in the world for seven years straight.

[@udishomer5852]

Most livable cities: there are at least four different ranking systems (look in Wikipedia)... Melbourne is ranked: 17, 5, 9, 17. So good livability, but not the top one for sure. And only large/major cities are ranked, so if we were to include smaller cities/towns, Melbourne would probably not make the top 50.

[@sadenuttie2234]

@@udishomer5852 Melbourne has ranked top 10 in liveability for a while before last year. And in what world is Melbourne “not a large city?” It has a population of over 5 million people.

[@chinninaveen000]

For the world Melbourne is shit, Sydney is the capital of Australia live with it.

[@theEddieworld]

@@udishomer5852 covid fucked things up but it usually is at the top

[@themickcollo]

Sure if you want to drive around Sydney it isn't it the best way, but for transportation alone Sydney moves way more people compared to what's happening in Melbourne

[@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.

[@federicomiron]

I live in La Plata, Argentina which is a city that was planned and constructed to be the capital of Buenos Aires, you should check it out cause the design is awesome. Anyways I LOVE the way it is cause it’s so easy to navigate and make shortcuts, I couldn’t live in a city with so random roads😭

[@zbjz]

Grids are great, it's the cars that make cities worse.

[@J.WULLEMS]

yea, but a city without Cars is impossible

[@maciejszulc2684]

@@J.WULLEMS It's probably impossible to have a functioning modern city with no cars whatsoever, sure. It's perfectly possible to have it with a much smaller number of cars than current American cities use, though.

[@J.WULLEMS]

@@maciejszulc2684 very true, but the huge amount of cars in American Cities is also the consequence of another mistake from the American government. PUBLIC TRANSPORT. Here in the Netherlands we have a beautiful public transport system in place. That's not the case in America.

[@Racko.]

@@J.WULLEMS The huge amount of cars in the US has more to do with the size of the nation and how spread out everywhere is, from roads and point A to B, the reason why transit is hardly a thing is due to car lobbyist buying out all of the transit systems and removing them for more roads so you're forced to drive, they lobby the Government for this very reason, also the comparison you made with the Netherlands doesn't hold water, it's a small country with 17M ppl and densely populated, which can be said about almost any European country, look what Delft, in Netherlands, it was a car centric area until like the mid 2000s until it became a great urban area, so transit and walkability is going to be a better there and pretty much a must to support the population, nobody wants to drive all the time, in the US the car lobbying is the reason, that doesn't mean it cant support transit, it can, most urban US cities already have insanely good transit, Seattle has invested so much into light rail, most car centric areas are in low density low populated large spaces across the US where your only option is to really just drive,

[@J.WULLEMS]

@@Racko. I believe you 😁

[@compromisedssh]

All of your videos have such a warped Denmark-is-best perspective. The one about parking was especially insane. I do enjoy your videos. I don't learn anything from them, but it's interesting to see someone start off with a bias and then build a case around it.

[@compromisedssh]

@UTubeFekUrself it’s a KZbin comment section lol. If his beyond-slanted perspective isn’t immediately self-evident then it isn’t clear what could show you the light.

[@CityWhisperer]

It’s definitely his bias what put Copenhagen at the top of the ‘most liveable cities’ list and definitely not a researched study.

[@TheBLGL]

Check the location for the channel, it should explain a lot.

[@mifphilip]

@@CityWhisperer Copenhagen has been continually been ranked as top 1 or in the top 10 most liveable cities for the last 10 years.

[@CityWhisperer]

@@mifphilip I know, hence the sarcasm.

[@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

[@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.

[@mediterraneanclassic]

You ain't stopping me from building 30 cities in the same grid design over and over in Cities:Skylines

[@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.

[@josegarciadobarganes7907]

I’ve been watching you videos for a while without subscription lol idk why, but I gave you follow today. Great content!

[@TheWizardGamez]

New York has a grid. Philadelphia has a grid. BARCELONA has a grid. The grid isn’t the “problem” the car centric nature of the grid is. If every street makes you want to drive a car, if there isn’t reasonable public transit around. If the shops aren’t near to your residence. And European cities tended to be around for hundreds if not thousands more years. They started as small developement. And weren’t centralized enough to impose a grid let alone a sewer until recent history. Grids aren’t bad. Grids are simple and they are effective for navigation. Proven by Manhattan. Cars are the problem. Cars are bad for cities. And how do you feel about suburbs? Huh. They aren’t on grids. But they suck ass. Grids aren’t bad. Car centric grids are. Shit… if you had trams or other public transit you could lower the amount of cars. You could LOWER the size of cities and regreen them. PUBLIC TRANSIT. That’s why American cities suck. If American cities had decent, wide reaching public transit. The noise in cities would decrease. The space for greenery would increase. You could walk in the the center of the road. The street of the city you live in. Your car isn’t a resident. It’s well being is against the well being of the city. Shit. Most kids learn about basic traffic management at a young age. Purely from the school system. Where by, you can see the direct exponential increase in car use and traffic. But by busses and other PUBLIC GOODS, we increase the well being for the entire community. Owning a car isn’t a problem. Lots of Europeans own cars. But europe has decent public transit, the US has urban freeways

[@garethgriffiths1674]

Helsinki, regarded as one of the "most livable" cities in the world has a grid plan, or more specifically three grids in slightly different orientations "smashing" together at the centre. During the 60s there was a worry that cars were becoming grid-locked, pun intended. An American town planner consultant advised the city authorities to rip through the city with elevated freeways. Alarmed at the idea of demolishing historic buildings to build the huge roads, the city decided the better solution would be to build an underground / metro system. The problem had never been the grid but the cars.

[@pretendcampus5410]

Same with Stockholm, which is also on the list in the video. The metro area is a grid-like, while the suburbs are not. My guess is that many European suburbs are not grid-like, which reduces their grid index score.

[@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"

[@paulrouth5997]

I have always thought of Jane Jacobs in relation to economics and her ideas of the overriding importance of megacities (import replacing ones) to economic activity and growth but she also talked about the multiple needs of city dwellers not being taken into account (The Death and Life of Great American Cities 1961). SoHo owes it's existence to her activism.

[@alkasah4softs129]

bro your channel will blow up soon keep up the good work love you

[@gabriele7381]

How is Barcelona better? You called its grid sustainable in terms of design but it seems like it has many issues as well. There are plans to improve it

[@paleamigo8575]

This video was obviously made by a grid hater of some sort. Maybe he had a bad experience or something.✌

[@RedRocketthefirst]

@@paleamigo8575 nah, hes Denmark centric

[@Racko.]

It's not, It's superblock pattern is designed to keep cars out, so it's more eco friendly for the people living in those superblocks, it's a good design but far from the best

[@americanexpat8792]

Having grown up in Chicago, I must add an important point. In the early 20th century, when most people didn't own a car, it made transport via the trolley, and later bus, possible for everybody in Chicago. Using bus transfers, it was literally possible to take a bus from any one point in the Chicago to another. That impossible in Chicago's suburbs today.

[@honeycomblord9384]

As someone from the suburbs, it's true. But does it apply to the city proper?

[@penderrin1637]

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

[@TheBrazilRules]

You must be insane to suggest that no planning is better than planning. I sure do love getting lost for hours because streets sprawl in unpredictable directions, so I have no idea how to go back to where I was without backtracking.

[@chikeh1]

I think grid plans ultimately just make 'making every street a highway' make sense. In non-grid plans like in Manila, we still have isolated or non-thoroughfare streets that are (although dirty and litter-y) useable by everyone even cars. Like children play there, there are sellers on the side, people chat on the side, there are people who bike too, some people try to snag fruit from the trees lining them, all because it's not really a thoroughfare or an expedient one at that so cars can go but it's just not the best path for them so by effect, they don't take the whole street.

[@udishomer5852]

Manila (well, Metro Manila) should not be put in the discussion for livable cities... I've lived there for 5+ years, its a horrible city for living.

[@aliquewilliams3080]

This is not true whatsoever, even in places like Las Vegas or LA. Within their superblocks are slow speeds and quiet residential neighborhoods.

[@theSultanofSquares]

I think you give grids a good shake. They have their upsides and downsides. But overwhelmingly I'd still attribute the problems as due to cars themselves and the unfailing strict adherence to grids, in particular those with large block spacing. Grids, as stated were and are an efficient way to lay out a street plan for rapid development. They also keep a city in order when private development is dominant (like in the US). When cities don't have good master-street-plans then there is a total breakdown of any logical street layout and no corridors get built, and we arrive at the same problem of no street really being able to accommodate traffic properly - assuming there's even a street. The big North American cities do have traffic problems, sure, but look at small suburban and x-urban North American cities, the ones who exploded since the 70s. Some have comparable traffic problems to much larger cities precisely because they didn't lay out a master street grid back decades ago and are suffering from failing interconnectedness today, for cars and pedestrians alike. Grids can actually make an extremely walkable environment precisely because there is such a high density of paths-to-destinations. They are essentially maximum access. And this is often talked about as always good, but absolutely they're inefficient therefore with materials and pavement as a resource. And grids are only unwalkable in so many cities in the US because the grids were set up with large block spacing (250+ m rather than like 75-125 m). I think if we kept grids as a way of selectively enhancing non-car, local access but broke it up with specifically laid out corridors and reservations for things like services and parks that helped break up the monotony of the grid, this would still be a grid in primary function - facilitating access for people on foot/bike/etc - but without falling victim to the downsides of that strict adherence. And we see this exactly in both European and American cities: more organized 'imperfect' grids like Savannah, GA; natural emergent streets interspersed with grids (from several stages of development) like Boston or even Vienna; as well as the 'grand planned' street grids of New York and Barcelona which are then cut up with non-grid streets. Somewhere in the middle can definitely be fine, in particular if the guiding principle isn't car-centered design. That's, to me, the primary failure of American urban design. This obsession with grid is a part, but more a compounding circumstance rather than a primary issue itself.

[@bvps]

This is exactly the type of video I have been looking for for the last 3 hours

[@carlosroura7581]

OH MY GOD, I was thinking ever since I saw the title and during all the video: "This does not apply to my city, Barcelona". My mouth instanctly opened at the end of the video! Thanks for the mention to my city! PS: the Argentinian city of La Plata, was designed inspired by Barcelona and it is also an example of good grid implementation

[@zcapari]

"boring streets are bad for mental health" they're not boring because of the right angles, they're boring because of the concrete towers and lack of street level businesses

[@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.

[@tadgohare]

My neighborhood has a 'circle' design to it where all of the side streets lead into the main road we have and it's very walker friendly and I am very grateful to have grown up as the vast majority of my friends live within walking distance of me while after I moved for university, I have to take the bus to see my friends and it's much harder to get around

[@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.

[@GhostShadowFilms]

American cities will never be on the list of most liveable cities even with the best urban planning in the world. Why? Because indices near universally have a weighting for healthcare costs and health outcomes (usually 20-30%). The metric is designed to keep smog covered Beijing and similar cities off the list. But US healthcare is such a buggered issue that overrides anything they do right. And crucially, it has nothing to do with the city in particular. I'm from Melbourne, Australia, which has been near the top of most liveable cities for a decade or more. It's a good city with a very expansive grid system. I love living here. But liveability lists are a joke.

[@honeycomblord9384]

As an American, what are we doing right? I'm interested.

[@udishomer5852]

Healthcare cost/outcome is maybe 20-30% of one livability index (EIU's Global Liveability Ranking). Other rankings don't even include healthcare, others put it at 10% at most. And its easy to include pollution levels as part of the index, its publicly available for all major cities.

[@Rezail_Uhhh]

Grid has more bonuses than what is listed. Grids actually allow for walking distance to stores. You won't even need public transportation to go to a convent store. Harder to get lost when you know you can actually turn right non stop and still make it to your destination. There a lot of bonuses that people just don't understand or care too. It's one of those thigns where people are like make fun waky designs but fail to see the short coming sof thsoe designs.

[@cielbie8251]

You don't really need a grid for that, just high enough density housing to support the stores ability to generate income. Most non-gridded towns and cities I've been in have had stores within walking distance too. If you get lost walking 5 minutes to the shop in a city you've lived in for more than a week, then im not sure the street layout is the issue

[@philshifley4731]

Many of the greatest planned cities in the world use grid patterns. To not use a grid or modified grid would be to costly.

[@ojomaze7777]

@@cielbie8251 and when it comes to being able to walk to stores, it's not just the grid, but also the walkabilty of the city in question, which I'm guessing we all know isn't really one of America's expertises anymore, heh.

[@cielbie8251]

​@@ojomaze7777 But what is more walkable, a city where all buidings are like islands trapped in a sea of busy main roads, or side roads where the only traffic is cars travelling to a building on that road? As well, an equally nice feature in a city is having most locations of interest in the center of the city, and blocking that center off from cars and making it designed entirely for pedestrians.

[@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)

[@philippizza1]

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

[@isaacreyes1181]

I really don't think grids are inherently bad. Like you said, Chicago is almost entirely gridded, but it has plenty of access to public transit, it's a very walk and bike friendly city. Traffic downtown is never that bad, as there really are no highways that run straight through it, and heavily trafficked roads are layered underground away from the street level and people. Cities like Atlanta or Dallas may be less gridded than Chicago, but they are definitely not as livable as Chicago is

[@brettcallero5519]

Yeah, no. I am from Chicago and lived there for 27 years. I also lived in Atlanta for 15 years. In the United States, a grid is MUCH better.

[@UR_Right24]

Chicago has diagonal avenues that cut across the grid as well though. The grid in Chicago is great. If I am driving back home to the suburbs from the city after work in rush hour traffic on the freeways, and the traffic is not moving, I can exit off the freeway, and drive in the same direction that I was going on the freeway, but on a secondary road, that starts in the city and takes me all the way to the suburbs, thanks to the streets being laid out in straight lines in a grid system and are continuous. If I am on a secondary road and there is alot of traffic on it, and let's say I am heading west on it and eventually plan to turn right on another secindary road to get to my destination, which is northwest of where I started, I can get off that street heading west and take an avenue heading in a nortwest direction, to get to my destination. You can always bypass traffic based on the layout. The city and its design was very well thought out and very utilitarian. They handled the trash problem that NYC and London and other cities never have, by building in alleyways in between buildings and behind them. The city planners got it right when they built Chicago.

[@bbmul1572]

I grew up in Chicago, loved the grid. It made getting around so much easier and more intuitive

[@kolbeinlkka3682]

Grids are great for flat areas without rivers or lakes. Grids are also easy to orientate, and gives you squared blocks that are easy to build in a good way. Triangular or trapezoid blocks can make for interesting variety and creative solutions, but for the most part they are problematic and difficult. I don't think the grid is the problem - it's what you put into it.

[@omerfarazj]

Vancouver is also an incredibly livable city...it's just that it's so expensive to live in.

[@Sc00terNut]

Being from Canada where most (but not all) towns and cities are grids, I remember thinking the street maps of London and Paris looked confusing. However, I found it was much easier to walk directly to places in thise cities. Now I love the non-grid layouts.

[@ninjanerdstudent6937]

Compared to other American cities, Chicago has a spectacular balance of driving, biking, and walking for greater access to lifestyle amenities.

[@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.

[@kigoshen]

Barcelona: I'm i a joke to you?

[@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.

[@zagvot]

Wow Nice video/explanation Do you have any recommendation (books/videos) on how to design a subdivision that suites terrain like mountainous area? Grid design is costly in Earthworks

[@asantaraliner]

I'm a Cities Skylines player and I often used the grid layout because it's easier to build and it's easier to build the water pipes perpendicular to streets and roads. I wonder if there's another player like me who build their cities with the same pattern.

[@Skate771parts]

Yup. Cities looks better in grids too

[@linuxman7777]

I only build organic like cities, they are still very financially viable, but it is clear that developers favor the grid

[@the-_-2145]

cities skylines encourages grids, the zoning tool works terable in wide turns and uneven spaces between the roads.

[@deicide6403]

me but with roundabouts. i hate traffic lights.

[@harrycchambers]

You make the argument about grid cities being unlivable, but Vancouver regularly ranks in the top ten most livable cities even if it didn’t in the year you looked at.

[@lipschitzlyapunov]

Exactly!

[@SchoolVideosGoHere]

I found this video a bit unfulfilling. It didn't really touch on what are the alternatives to grid and what about them could be contributing to cities being more liveable. Hearing just about grids and correlations related to it didn't fully help me grasp the (proposed) issue.

[@Argenswiss]

I've spent a significant amount of time in Denmark and Switzerland, the two top places he ranked, and I grew up in Buenos Aires, a mostly grid City. Id say the street layout is the only thing where Bueno Aires is far better

[@jackdotchel2504]

Comparing cities designed for walking with US cities is just ridiculous. Most US cities were made with the car in mind.

[@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.

[@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.

[@elibolton6235]

I’ve always been keen on geography and sociology, so I didn’t really learn much, but I still love watching the videos.

[@Abcflc]

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

[@juliancate7089]

Right, the glaring flaw in the premise is stated at the beginning that there is a correlation, but correlation does not prove causality. Yet... you persist with the flawed premise anyway. Chicago's unlivable status is clearly due to a host of non-grid related issues and there is no reason to accept that if these other issues were removed that it would still be unlivable. So, an entire video that is more about a European bragging about Europe and crapping on the USA....because Europe.

[@ojomaze7777]

This. I honestly feel a bit bad for OBF. It feels like he's had oversights like that pretty often. I'm really interested in the subjects of his videos, but, I just *keep* running into him making an error that ruins it for me lol.

[@juliancate7089]

@@ojomaze7777 Yeah, I had to LOL too. Credit to him in that he acknowledged all the flaws up front, like correlation not proving cause, that livability - whatever the F that's supposed to mean - is purely subjective and that there are many methods of measuring it....and then ignores it all.

[@tommunyon2874]

In 1969 and 70 I lived in Colorado Springs. Whenever I had to go to Denver I was perplexed by the downtown area where the grid system seemed to be rotated 45° off from the north, south/east, west grid of the more outlying streets. This created asterisk shaped intersections with flatiron blocks where these two systems came together. Since then my only contact with Denver has been at the airports. That is another story. My making a connection at Stapelton, and the later new airport, has been the exception rather than the rule.

[@MrJayehawk]

Can't speak for livable, but grids sure make it a lot easier to figure out where you're going in a place you might not be really familiar with.

[@grantguy8933]

Why not pick Paris or Madrid or Beijing?

[@jonjessen]

Try Katmandu 😁

[@kiernanoh]

Barcelona is a great grid city. It solved the problem by eliminating cars.

[@546153]

Hi! As always great video. You also can mention latin american grids citys as an example of all this. Waiting for the next vid!!

[@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.

[@TheFireGiver]

Except chicago is a significantly better city in terms of public transportation compared to other American cities that aren't as much on a grid. Sounds like you're advocating for fewer pirates to lower global warming.

[@Skyfoogle]

less livability in american cities has n o t h i n g to do with grids

[@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