More than one master planner has come up with an "ideal" grid, only to have real people eventually bend the rules or reject them.
#what are the pro's and con's to an special grid size?
lyric flax
tawdry pendant
every city wanted their own version 🤣
lyric flax
In some cities, several small towns grew into each other and where their grids collided, interesting things happened to the streets.
Some cities deliberately changed grids to make it easy to see where different neighborhoods were. In some cases, this was done in order to prevent groups of people from winding up in the "wrong" neighborhoods - discrimination in play.
There is also the element of history: different eras of growth can see different grids imposed.
hazy turret
Mathematically speaking the grid size has 2 opposing factors:
Connectivity and space efficiency
Smaller size means more roads and more connections but also more pavement. Larger size means that you will have less roads and have more overall area for buildings. But then, how do you get inside the block or will you build most of the apartments without windows?
mild turret
Different grid sizes serve very different needs for the people that live in them. Smaller grids allow for better walk ability as routes are shorter. However, the smaller the grid, the more intersections and greater conflicts for vehicles (more accidents). Therefore larger grids are better and safer for cars
This is why Portland, OR has a smaller grid vs larger ones in Texas. As examples
mild turret
Haha, for city skylines, this is exactly how I do it! I’d argue though it depends what you’re trying to do. I’d argue it’s better to reduce car use generally and create more walkable and bikeable places close to each other with transit supporting longer distances. Reduce car accidents outright, reduce traffic, improve air quality, improve road safety, improve the health of people, and make it easier for people who need a car (handicapped, less-mobile, or emergency/service vehicles) to get where they need to go.
mild turret
Glad we can help!
Here’s the video where it goes into it a bit, if you’re curious. https://youtu.be/5ZwbZWrKbGI
tawdry pendant
That guy really puts extreme places on other sides of spectrum and then one is better other is not.
lyric flax
^^ Not a fan of that video. It's not considering that the decision to go full grid was made before cars existed. At the time, full grids made perfect pedestrian sense. They were also hard-packed dirt roads, so no problems with asphalt runoff back when they first were built out. It's putting cars on top of pedestrian grids that gave us issues with them.
Just because a city is not car-friendly does not mean it is blessed with good design. 🙂
What I'm very interested in are cities like Curitiba in Brazil that took out much of their car infrastructure, made it into parks, and stepped up their bus game to be something people could use almost as effectively as personal cars. There it's not a matter of grid vs swings but of how much car does one permit in one's city?
mild turret
^^ Not a fan of that video. It's not considering that the decision to go full gr...
Btw I agree with you. I don’t think his arguments are sound at all and he does leave out a lot of nuance. You can only have so much material in a short video for YouTube lol. But there were some aspects that are useful to understand. Like his description of grid size and it’s impact on pedestrian and cars.
Also, that grids allow for consistent and predictable patterns for development that maximize land use. That isn’t to say it’s perfect but trade offs occur.
mild turret
What I'm very interested in are cities like Curitiba in Brazil that took out muc...
I’m really into this sort of thinking myself. Rethinking these old uses and patterns into something new. That is more friendly to all people and planet rather than just going with this idea that cars are what they are and it’s left at that. We could rethink so much of how we plan and due things for the better of all people
There are tons of new opportunities now that the new dlc is out. There’s an interesting challenge to have too where you build cities like what we see in the US and then try to figure out strategies to make them better
Kinda like what we are seeing CPP do in VB
lyric flax
I'm enjoying a build in which the grid starts and then breaks down in interesting ways.