I’ve always liked looking up (or down?) long avenues and being able to navigate easier even in cities I haven’t been before.
39 comments
What’s a grid?
Asking for Boston /s
Efficient but boring.
The best way to organize a city IMO.
Visit Salt Lake City. The grid stretches through the entire valley. When I lived there, I never once had to look for directions so long as i had the address.
Grids rule
Its genius.
Love it. You can’t get lost! This is great for any place except areas around rivers that converge then it’s all over, and the locals don’t even know which way is south or the curved street that are one over because if it crosses a major road the name may change.
I love it. I live in a city where the downtown has a grid and it’s mostly pretty easy to get around.
I prefer it , much easier than cow paths.
My town is a grid and it makes navigating so much easier.
The city I grew up in did that, I loved it. Streets all ran east-west, numbered from north to south. Avenues ran north-south, numbered from east to west. So 1st street crossed 1st ave in the north east corner, and built from there.
It was so easy to find an address or know about how far something was. Nearly impossible to get lost.
It’s pretty easy. Streets go up and down, avenues go side to side (or whatever).
It depends when the city expanded and the overall topography. It makes things easier but it’s not possible everywhere. DC is whatever where it kind of is but isn’t.
When the topography suits it, it makes sense
No grids here. Rhode Island
I have spent most of my life in a town that is not only allergic to grids, but straight roads in general, grids seem kind of weird to be as a result. But they are logical and easy to navigate.
It’s my fave. My bf who’s not from a city used to get irritated by me saying “use the squares” in reference to cutting through whatever roads to get to wherever you need to go.
Areas without grid streets feel like spaghetti on a plate. I hate it.
Easier to navigate. Sure sign of a planned city. Out west most cities are on a grid–and if the grids don’t align, it’s because two or more towns grew with slightly incompatible grids and wound up with a discontinuity where they met.
I grew up in the San Joaquin Valley. Nearly all the major roads of all the towns along Highway 99 are laid out on the same latitude/longitude grid, with discontinuities only to adjust for the curvature of the Earth. (That is, north-south streets sometimes contain a jog to reconcile parallel streets with streets that lie on certain latitude lines.)
I love it. I actually don’t like that my neighborhood is intentionally non grid like.
Intelligent design.
I wish I saw it more often in big cities here in the states. (There’s a few good ones though)
It’s kind of cool driving through the desert at night around places like Las Vegas and seeing the cities off in the distance.
OKC was laid out on a grid, extremely easy to get around. By contrast Tulsa was not, and it’s almost impossible to get around without a nav aid.
We put one on a mountain. It’s probably better then not having a grid, but it can still get confusing.
Hello from Pittsburgh, the city where they (used to?) train self-driving cars because we have no system and tons of potholes and if you can drive here you can drive anywhere in the US.
That said, I prefer our lack of a system to cities where every street is Main St S, Main St E, Main St SE, or Center St, Center Ave, Center Dr, etc. If you’re giving your streets themed names, either number them or alphabetize them or at least make them different at a glance.
I used to go to school in DC. I think I became a fan while I was there.
Born and raised in Chicago, a grid where the addresses all make sense to me. Where I live now, no grid, addresses are whatever they want, drives me insane.
I live in an area that’s not a grid, and when I go to places that have a grid, it’s a little bit confusing, because every corner looks so similar.
As some one who has driven through multiple cities it is a wonderful thing to be able to EASILY navigate streets and find your way back should you miss a turn…… looking at you Boston you chaos creating physchopaths.
Home city is grid until you get to the suburbs. I really liked Barcelona’s grid. Alternating one way streets with the diagonals cutting through for fast travel from one side to the other.
When you’ve lived in an area for a long time the grid layout is boring. When you are new to an area it makes navigation so much easier. I recently moved to France and the city block I live on is a triangle and many many roads weave back and forth. I get turned around so easily since making a right turn while walking south does not guarantee I’m now walking west. That being said, in the long run, I prefer having a learning curve with less boredom over easy and boring.
I live in Manhattan, it’s alright. Maybe the best setup would be a grid that’s mixed up with more irregular streets (like the way broadway cuts through ours diagonally). IMO you lose out on a lot of really appealing urban spaces when you impose such an extreme restriction on what the streetscape can look like.
Chicago has a very useful grid that doesn’t harm the aesthetic at all.
Functional but boring.
Every city needs at least one Broadway. DC has lots of angle streets and some traffic circles, laid on top of their grid.
It gets strange when the grid is rotated away from north-south to align with rivers, mountains, or railroads. Charlotte’s grid is at a 45 degree angle to north, but the streets are still labeled north, south, east, west.
Works great in Chicago, navigating is a lot easier.
Philadelphia. the original areas between the rivers are nearly perfect laid on a grid built around 5 public squares
Agreed. Grid is where it’s at. NYC is easy to navigate for example, especially Manhattan. Just know what street number you’re on, know what street number your destination is on, then simply count up or down and console math to know where to go.
My home town does it too, except letters instead of numeric streets (much smaller than NYC).
Grids make life easier navigating larger cities or in newer towns I’ve never been to.
Now in residential areas, meh….i don’t mind curvy roads and in hilly areas they’re unavoidable. Grids tend to make neighborhoods boring and templated.
I moved from a smaller city that was on a grid system to a much larger city that was not and I was like “wtf!” Why every city is not on a grid is beyond me. There wasn’t an address one couldn’t find in my former city because it was like “1234 34th street. Oh, they live on 12th Ave and 34th street.” Where I am now it’s like “12345 N. Dr. Leo Albert Marvin, III Blvd and it happens to be a half one way street that runs diagonally through the nexus of this universe and another. Good luck finding it!”
39 comments
What’s a grid?
Asking for Boston /s
Efficient but boring.
The best way to organize a city IMO.
Visit Salt Lake City. The grid stretches through the entire valley. When I lived there, I never once had to look for directions so long as i had the address.
Grids rule
Its genius.
Love it. You can’t get lost! This is great for any place except areas around rivers that converge then it’s all over, and the locals don’t even know which way is south or the curved street that are one over because if it crosses a major road the name may change.
I love it. I live in a city where the downtown has a grid and it’s mostly pretty easy to get around.
I prefer it , much easier than cow paths.
My town is a grid and it makes navigating so much easier.
The city I grew up in did that, I loved it. Streets all ran east-west, numbered from north to south. Avenues ran north-south, numbered from east to west. So 1st street crossed 1st ave in the north east corner, and built from there.
It was so easy to find an address or know about how far something was. Nearly impossible to get lost.
It’s pretty easy. Streets go up and down, avenues go side to side (or whatever).
It depends when the city expanded and the overall topography. It makes things easier but it’s not possible everywhere. DC is whatever where it kind of is but isn’t.
When the topography suits it, it makes sense
No grids here. Rhode Island
I have spent most of my life in a town that is not only allergic to grids, but straight roads in general, grids seem kind of weird to be as a result. But they are logical and easy to navigate.
It’s my fave. My bf who’s not from a city used to get irritated by me saying “use the squares” in reference to cutting through whatever roads to get to wherever you need to go.
Areas without grid streets feel like spaghetti on a plate. I hate it.
Easier to navigate. Sure sign of a planned city. Out west most cities are on a grid–and if the grids don’t align, it’s because two or more towns grew with slightly incompatible grids and wound up with a discontinuity where they met.
I grew up in the San Joaquin Valley. Nearly all the major roads of all the towns along Highway 99 are laid out on the same latitude/longitude grid, with discontinuities only to adjust for the curvature of the Earth. (That is, north-south streets sometimes contain a jog to reconcile parallel streets with streets that lie on certain latitude lines.)
I love it. I actually don’t like that my neighborhood is intentionally non grid like.
Intelligent design.
I wish I saw it more often in big cities here in the states. (There’s a few good ones though)
It’s kind of cool driving through the desert at night around places like Las Vegas and seeing the cities off in the distance.
[Everyone likes the grid plan](https://youtu.be/9awJCyjt550?si=D7aJX5dZxXhc05Bs)
OKC was laid out on a grid, extremely easy to get around. By contrast Tulsa was not, and it’s almost impossible to get around without a nav aid.
We put one on a mountain. It’s probably better then not having a grid, but it can still get confusing.
Hello from Pittsburgh, the city where they (used to?) train self-driving cars because we have no system and tons of potholes and if you can drive here you can drive anywhere in the US.
That said, I prefer our lack of a system to cities where every street is Main St S, Main St E, Main St SE, or Center St, Center Ave, Center Dr, etc. If you’re giving your streets themed names, either number them or alphabetize them or at least make them different at a glance.
I used to go to school in DC. I think I became a fan while I was there.
Born and raised in Chicago, a grid where the addresses all make sense to me. Where I live now, no grid, addresses are whatever they want, drives me insane.
I live in an area that’s not a grid, and when I go to places that have a grid, it’s a little bit confusing, because every corner looks so similar.
As some one who has driven through multiple cities it is a wonderful thing to be able to EASILY navigate streets and find your way back should you miss a turn…… looking at you Boston you chaos creating physchopaths.
Home city is grid until you get to the suburbs. I really liked Barcelona’s grid. Alternating one way streets with the diagonals cutting through for fast travel from one side to the other.
When you’ve lived in an area for a long time the grid layout is boring. When you are new to an area it makes navigation so much easier. I recently moved to France and the city block I live on is a triangle and many many roads weave back and forth. I get turned around so easily since making a right turn while walking south does not guarantee I’m now walking west. That being said, in the long run, I prefer having a learning curve with less boredom over easy and boring.
I live in Manhattan, it’s alright. Maybe the best setup would be a grid that’s mixed up with more irregular streets (like the way broadway cuts through ours diagonally). IMO you lose out on a lot of really appealing urban spaces when you impose such an extreme restriction on what the streetscape can look like.
Chicago has a very useful grid that doesn’t harm the aesthetic at all.
Functional but boring.
Every city needs at least one Broadway. DC has lots of angle streets and some traffic circles, laid on top of their grid.
It gets strange when the grid is rotated away from north-south to align with rivers, mountains, or railroads. Charlotte’s grid is at a 45 degree angle to north, but the streets are still labeled north, south, east, west.
Works great in Chicago, navigating is a lot easier.
Philadelphia. the original areas between the rivers are nearly perfect laid on a grid built around 5 public squares
Agreed. Grid is where it’s at. NYC is easy to navigate for example, especially Manhattan. Just know what street number you’re on, know what street number your destination is on, then simply count up or down and console math to know where to go.
My home town does it too, except letters instead of numeric streets (much smaller than NYC).
Grids make life easier navigating larger cities or in newer towns I’ve never been to.
Now in residential areas, meh….i don’t mind curvy roads and in hilly areas they’re unavoidable. Grids tend to make neighborhoods boring and templated.
I moved from a smaller city that was on a grid system to a much larger city that was not and I was like “wtf!” Why every city is not on a grid is beyond me. There wasn’t an address one couldn’t find in my former city because it was like “1234 34th street. Oh, they live on 12th Ave and 34th street.” Where I am now it’s like “12345 N. Dr. Leo Albert Marvin, III Blvd and it happens to be a half one way street that runs diagonally through the nexus of this universe and another. Good luck finding it!”