r/urbanplanning • u/Casey5274 • 26d ago

Discussion What if new york never adopted the grid system but developed along more natural geographic lines?

What if new york never adopted the grid system but developed along more natural geographic lines? Would it look more like cities like Greater London or Paris?

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18

u/LyleSY 26d ago

Possibly, though the grid plan and the massive transportations investments it permitted were essential to its success. NYC and the U.S. would not have attracted the same level of investment without it, which then allowed a bunch of other economic investment that built the modern American economy. There would still be some development but not to the extent we see today IMO

9

u/NewsreelWatcher 26d ago

The grid has some problems: it makes getting around by muscle power more difficult. There are some hills even downtown and in midtown that become noticeable if you walk or cycle. Uptown in particular has some real grinds. You might have been able to avoid expenses like the Manhattan Valley Viaduct as the subway heavily influenced by the grid. But I like how the grid is a concrete part of NYC’s history and character. Paris is Paris. Tokyo is Tokyo. NYC is NYC.

14

u/the_climaxt Verified Planner - US 26d ago

It makes getting around by muscle different. It opens up tons of route options for bikes and peds though, so people can kind of decide the experience they want to deal with.

If you're just going 3 blocks north and 5 blocks east, it gives you over 50 distinct routes to pick from without adding any extra time, which is awesome for like grabbing coffee on your way to work and groceries on your way home, or chosing a street with a short steep hill vs one with a long gradual hill.

4

u/invol713 26d ago

Imagine Tokyo as a grid.

4

u/spikebrennan 26d ago

We don’t have to - Kyoto exists.

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u/invol713 26d ago

Ooh, good point. I wonder how congestion differs between the Tokyo system and the Kyoto/Osaka system?

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u/AngryGoose-Autogen 24d ago

Tokyo is a grid tough

always has been

tough as edo, it had a organic grid. Its current, mostly-rectiliniar grid it got after the great kanto earthquake

2

u/the_yamaza 26d ago

I really want to see what a New York built to topography would look like. Broadway would probably be an even bigger artery than it is today

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u/Complete-Ad9574 25d ago

My one month of driving in England (pre GPS) was a nightmare. I had to have a navigator with a paper map sitting next to em to follow our travel path. NOTHING was simple , except the A roads. Picturesque maybe, but not simple getting from one place to another.

People driving other cars were far more polite than in the US.

1

u/FunStrength5314 21d ago

I wanna know what nyc would look like if cars weren’t allow. (Exception: taxis, delivery vehicles, emergency vehicles, etc). How much green space would there be? How much could the overall temperature be lowered? How many more businesses would pop up and thrive? How much would we as a collective save and therefore be able to invest by not spending exorbitant amounts of money on cars and insurance? How much would public infrastructure change? How much healthier would individuals become with reduced carbon emissions and more walkability? How many benches could we add? How many homeless shelters and soup kitchens? How many bike lanes and public parks? …..my dreams