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^If you're referring to my "endless rows of development" comment, I don't mean the look of the neighborhood. What I mean is a seemingly endless grid that slices up what is certainly seemingly endless urban development. Not the actual appearance of those neighborhoods. I also referenced the effect the lack of a grid has on the look/feel of a neighborhood which is a response to another comment, not so much a commentary on maps.
Water features shape the cities. hills and mountains also slice off development (the Bay Area is a good example) and create seemingly random park spaces and undeveloped spaces as well as odd street patterns.
Not only you, but yes, you were one of them, and thanks for explaining.
Large swaths of rectangular or square city blocks are common in many cities, both old and new cities. These are common even in areas that did not use the PLSS survey system (one-mile-square section lines).
The one-mile-square section line grid is only used in the Midwest, west, and some parts of the South, west of the Mississippi River. Suburban areas use this grid extensively.
One example of over-use of the one-mile-square section line grid in a metro area is Oklahoma City. Go to Google Maps and zoom out to 5 miles. The grid stretches in every direction 20 miles from the city center.
I've always been a big fan of city/metro area maps. With every new city I would visit I'd always make it a point to pick up a map to add to my existing collection. Highway/street layout, park/attraction locations, geographic features and rail lines are just a few of the pictorial elements that contribute to a particular layout's aesthetic appeal. If I had to choose my top 3 metro area layouts, I'd go with:
1. Los Angeles
2. Chicagoland
3. Houston/Galveston
Well, I've never been to Chicago but whenever I look at maps of other cities I always tend to compare them to Houston. I mean, I know Houston like the back of my hand...it's my home. That said, I've always felt that Houston's layout makes so much sense! It's so easy. It's literally like a giant bull's-eye with the 45/59 and I-10 making the cross hairs and 610 and the Beltway making the rings!
Same here. The hub and spoke system just seems to make sense intuitively. The clearly-defined city center bounded by US- 59, I-45 and I-10 eventually blossoms out to the 610 loop which then spreads to the beltway and past the Highway 6/FM 1960 semi-loop, allowing for easily-identifiable geographic regions in every direction. The completion of TX-99 will only add to and further facilitate Houston's outward expansion. All the markings of a truly massive and far-reaching super-metropolis.
The dual semicircles of 95 and 495 work together beautifully to give Boston metro its gargantuan reach. With continued urbanization, one can almost imagine Boston and Providence melding into a formidable "twin-cities" unit in the next 20-30 years or so.
NOLA is attractive in its own right, but I think the marsh areas kind of take away from the urban continuity. To get the full "crescent", your eyes almost want to fill in the area from Kenner to Laplace, and the western portion of the west bank between Avondale and Boutte. Of course, save for along the riverfront, any further development due south of NOLA is pretty much out of the question due to geography. It will be interesting to see how the Northshore eventually turns out. One could almost imagine Mandeville/Covington eventually coming into its own and becoming the "N.O." of the Northshore, providing another "twin cities" opportunity.
Charleston metro has a lot of potential, and the 526 semi-loop looks to be the start of something worthy of reckoning.
Location: Cleveland bound with MPLS in the rear-view
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I like Chicago's street grid.
I like Minneapolis-St. Paul's freeway grid (unique among U.S. cities not to be concentric around a focal point).
I like NYC's rail grid....A LOT!
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