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Doesn't Salt Lake City have the best street grid?
As far as I remember, their addresses are based on the coordinate system, so you know where the place is without looking at the map.
I would agree with this. Having both streets that meet at right angles and a consistent, straightforward direction and numbering scheme throughout the entire surrounding valley makes for very efficient navigation in Salt Lake City.
Some metro areas that no one would ever pick as having the best street grids (despite their many other great qualities) would include Atlanta, Boston, Pittsburgh and Honolulu.
I would agree with this. Having both streets that meet at right angles and a consistent, straightforward direction and numbering scheme throughout the entire surrounding valley makes for very efficient navigation in Salt Lake City.
Some metro areas that no one would ever pick as having the best street grids (despite their many other great qualities) would include Atlanta, Boston, Pittsburgh and Honolulu.
I just looked up the map in Honolulu, and it looks like that city only has a limited grid in a few places. That said due to mountains and hills around that city, a lot of it doesn't follow a grid.
I forgot about Salt Lake City, you're right that city actually uses coordinates(for how far south, north, east, or west) for its street names! Which I don't think any other city or its suburbs(in a metro with a grid system largely used for its streets), does.
Philadelphia served as a model for many cities and towns across the United States, probably most famously in San Francisco where they chose to use the same names for some of the streets.
Philly, nooo and I grew up in Philly and still have family there. Its not awful but not highest level.
If the thread title was about city propers, then Philadelphia would be a viable candidate since the grid extends far beyond Center City, with a few diagonal grids for Northwest, Northeast, and Southwest Philly that supplement the main grid that also includes North, South, and West Philly. Some of the suburbs/satellite cities have decent little grids, but the majority tend to be built along the terrain and/or old post routes.
I disagree on Dallas/Fort Worth regarding best for the MSA, which is a shame given its flat land. Just a bunch of random street names for the most part, lots of bends in the main thoroughfares, and although the oldest sections do have grids, they're just a tiny fraction of their MSAs. Fort Worth's grid only goes up to 19th Street, and few near westside neighborhoods of Dallas do have some numbers, but it doesn't go very far. There are a few "mile road" systems in/around Arlington, Garland, and Desoto, but they only represent a few suburbs, and most of the streets in between are typical suburban spaghetti.
I'm still a little annoyed that several people have placed cities whose grids bend and twist far more than Kansas City's above it.
Yes, the city has a network of boulevards that follow the terrain and thus break the grid. But that IMO is not that much different from the angled thoroughfares that break the Chicago grid in places. Wyandotte County above the Kansas River has its own grid, but the rest of the area (save for the original Town of Kansas settlement along the Missouri River downtown, known today as the River Market district) is on a single, uniform metropolitan grid based on the Jefferson survey.
If the thread title was about city propers, then Philadelphia would be a viable candidate since the grid extends far beyond Center City, with a few diagonal grids for Northwest, Northeast, and Southwest Philly that supplement the main grid that also includes North, South, and West Philly. Some of the suburbs/satellite cities have decent little grids, but the majority tend to be built along the terrain and/or old post routes.
I disagree on Dallas/Fort Worth regarding best for the MSA, which is a shame given its flat land. Just a bunch of random street names for the most part, lots of bends in the main thoroughfares, and although the oldest sections do have grids, they're just a tiny fraction of their MSAs. Fort Worth's grid only goes up to 19th Street, and few near westside neighborhoods of Dallas do have some numbers, but it doesn't go very far. There are a few "mile road" systems in/around Arlington, Garland, and Desoto, but they only represent a few suburbs, and most of the streets in between are typical suburban spaghetti.
Ditto for Houston. Once off the freeway system Houston is notorious for its lack of through streets, "missing" road sections where streets of same name stop and start with undeveloped gaps in between, roads like Memorial that sometimes bypass turn at intersections rather than continuing straight as expected, and streets that seem to randomly change names in the middle of the city (Montrose becomes Studewood becomes Studemont, Richmond becomes Wheeler, Heights becomes Waugh, Westheimer becomes Elgin, etc.). There are also numbered streets in different parts of the city that have no connection at all with those in other parts of the city, like numbered Heights streets have no relation to numbered streets on the East Side.
The only "good" feature is that there is a standard numbering system that increases by 1 (1 side of street odd, other even) outwards in all directions from the "zero" point where Main Street crosses Buffalo Bayou. But not every street uses it, though it does help visualize how far you might be from the center of the city.
Houston and Phoenix from what I’ve seen. There may be others, but I haven’t visited enough to know…
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