American """cities"""

why are american """cities""" so gridded?

Beautiful European city in comparison

it has many advantages

A grid pattern is arguably one of the most efficient ways to plan a city if you really think about it.

Gridding a city like the X-Y plane means it's easy to pin-point a location. You can also have long streets while also being able to move relatively freely.

It's ergonomic and efficient.

Grids are pretty convenient for infrastructure planning and navigation. The capital of South Australia was laid out in a grid system inspired by Los Angeles (I think) and it really fucking easy to get around. A pity the state is a bit shithouse.

Also, you can't really compare American cities to European ones.

American cities developed recently and rapidly, whereas European cities are far older and were developed gradually over centuries. Their circular nature comes from the means of transportation available hundreds of years ago.
American cities on the other hand are by and large built around the car, rail, and other recent forms of transportation.

TOo many traffic lights though.

That's why they need roundabouts :^)

Roundabouts are problematic for pedestrians.

it is cherry picked as fuck.
lots of cities in europe are also gridded. fully or partially

how do random chaotic patterns reduce the number of lights?

...

here in michigan (and other states from the "northwest" territories) its because thats how land was bought

here three rights pretty much always makes a left

then we fix the problem by building non-gridded cities. Looks so much better :)

You can't really compare American cities to cities in various European countries, because the latter were established in the days around and even before the horse and cart, build outwards from a principle location over time. This is a fundamentally different issue which is not comparable if we are going to be honest about it.

Grids aren't really a problem in itself, but american urban planning has been notoriously poor, and cars really don't help that, because you have to take into account the massive number of cars.
Americans city center are aswell different than European city centers. Take Upper middle class american suburbs(aka not LA's suburbia full of mcmansion) and they're absolutely gorgeous, whereas French suburbs are ugly as shit and utilitarians

In non-gridded cities streets have different importance, with fewer major roads. You usually don't need traffic lights for minor streets intersections.

...

thats why we allow turning right on red lights

in civilized states that is

everywhere? here its almost everywhere except in one particular city because of the many pedestrians i think

i believe roundabouts is a better alternative to no light intersections. but you argue that they are bad for pedestrians. as opposed to no light intersections?

That flag
That filename

same i think. there is no turn on red in some big cities like chicago and nyc i believe

New York was made like that because of us, but I don't know about the other cities

Well yeah, unless the roundabouts are particularly small they're hard to cross for pedestrians.

looks like Hokkaido

Easy navigation and land use. It started in New Haven CT and caught-on. Navigating NYC if you've never been there is a lot easier than other cities.

>That's why they need roundabouts :^)
Have em.
It's I to take a right on red in NYC

>Take Upper middle class american suburbs(aka not LA's suburbia full of mcmansion) and they're absolutely gorgeous, whereas French suburbs are ugly as shit and utilitarians
Because our inner cities are filthy minority filled ghettos. Most countries have the poor living in suburbs and rich in the center, were the exception.

It's in Northern Japan, user.

Sapporo, in Hokkaido.

Needs more lanes for extra chaos. Seriously though fuck being stuck in the middle lane of a massive roundabout like that.

it's japanese you retarded g*rm

>American cities on the other hand are by and large built around the car, rail, and other recent forms of transportation.
Originally they would have been built around horse and cart, and then trams

But you're right that European cities obviously grew organically over many many hundreds of years.

When actually planning a city (like in the case of most American cities, but also in other parts of the world), grids seem to be popular.

E.g. pic related is Milton Keynes in England, designed/built in the 1960s. Another example would be Brasilia in Brazil, which I think was designed in the 1950s.

Grid is objectively better.

We have incurable autism.

Grid or not has nothing to do with how many traffic lights there are.

>Take Upper middle class american suburbs(aka not LA's suburbia full of mcmansion
You mean, like Malibu or Santa Monica?

I just wish we had good passenger rail systems and other public transportation but the car and oil industry ruined our chances of that decades ago

False, and here's why.

Yes it does. Grids result in 4-way intersections - TONS OF THEM. And you need traffic lights for those. People are going in every direction, up, down, left, right.

In concentric cities (pic related), the arteries towards the city centre have most of the traffic only flowing in two directions - towards and away from the city. So they're not cutting across each other very much. 4-way intersections are very rare in London (you can often get T-junctions, 3-way junctions, but they're quicker to get through than a 4-way junction).

>picture on the right has all 4 way intersections and a 8 lane intersection in the middle

and the grid option on your pic has more travel options than the right side

pic related is DC's non grid layout, its a fucking mess

also unlike europe american cities dont have everything non-residential in a little 2 block area

>25 intersections is better than 18

sure thing buddy

>that flat landscape without forests
I would suffer from mental diseases in that environment.

>Europeans will defend their shitty, chaotic cities

The pic is inaccurate. The text claims that the blue route is "WAY longer" but it's exactly as long as the red route.

This picture illustrates my point. I've plotted two journeys towards the centre of two cities.

The London journey is slightly longer (3.4 miles vs. 3.2 miles) but it takes nearly half the time!

Grids make journeys longer because you're never travelling "as the crow flies" - and also, every time the roads intersect, you have to have a 4-way intersections. And they are the slowest junctions that have ever existed in human history.

London traffic is still busy (obviously, it's a major city), but I don't think it's anywhere near as bad as New York (Manhattan) traffic, even though both cities are the same size (8 million people).

>tfw in your cunt a 3 mile ride in a city will take you out of the city

Open spaces are the best. Open spaces are the most freeing spaces of all.

Don't go to Milton Keynes though, it's a total shithole.

>live in a European city
>get your destination quickly and easily
>live in a yank city
>stuck in traffic on the "highway", then get to the city and you have to make about a billion 90 degree turns, which are an extremely inefficient way to reach your destination
Pottery

You're right. Well spotted. I didn't realise that. But that actually makes it even worse!

So even if you take the most direct route, it's long. Because there is no direct road, instead you have to constantly zig-zag, which is obviously far more inefficient than if there is a road going directly to your destination.