Grids make a city real?

[Kusajika Yachiru 9]

Hiya... I noticed a lot of people seem to refuse to make a grid like city because it looks ugly or for other reasons but grids are used in almost every city most do get away from it faster than others but all cities roots start with a grid shape and often with the popular names like 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and so on...

Cities like Las Vegas is in my opinion (as someone who lived there) is 70% grid, and it is mostly the newest of new areas that are not grided but all the avenues still are.

I guess my point is for those who make there cities who little or any grid at all to strive for realism, isn't that unreal in itself?

[JakeMD 107]

Chicago, minneapolis, New York, all good examples

[Kusajika Yachiru 9]

Oh what and honor that a Moderator replies to only my second thread! Wow!!

Oh and those are even better examples! Grids are nice to me if made corectly... not sure how to explain that lol

[highlander_llama 0]

I will agree that grids are very much used, especially as you said in early development. I'm in Portland, Oregon and we have streets numbered out to I believe the highest I've seen is 366th. I usually keep to a grid like structure out as long as possible usually until there is a elevation difference/river or a highway/railroad in which I will adjust as needed to work around those areas in a visually appealing fashion.

[psander5 198]

I don't tend to use grids very often in the normal sense. I understand that the game is designed to simulate American cities, but being a European, grids make me cry a little bit inside. European cities aren't naturally gridded. Of course, there have been some experiments, and you can find some lose grids in many cities, but having hundreds of years of progressive development and re-development, our cities have a different street plan, and most of our streets have proper names instead of numbers.

Within the realms of SimCity though I follow the path of least resistance, and most of my cities have at least some areas of grid pattern, although it's usually not regimented.

[TekindusT 3,809]

If you want to do a European realistic historic district you must avoid grids. Streets are narrow and twisty, just the opposite of a grid. I usually use the method above, laying streets and roads in the most natural way, using only grid patterns when the terrain is completely flat.

[WillG_75 19]

I like grids, but I don't like the boring 45 and 90 degree grids. I always try to use an odd angle when building my downtown core, which is what many real cities have done, usually to align themselves to a river or whatnot.

[Kryptowhite 9]

The grid is a more recent city planning design [by recent, i mean like the last 150 years].

If you look at a lot of American cities that were around back then, you'll notice that the streets are much more wacky and there is no grid, just look at Boston, Lower Manhattan, Providence, etc.

Pretty much every city in Europe has little to no grid too. And even cities with grids have variations. For example, Midtown Manhattan has broadway.

[Albatross Domain 2]

One thing I have recently discovered here in Texas, Especially in San Antonio... Center of town is gridded (considering the city started back in the 1700's). but almost the outlying areas are almost wagon wheel, you're lucky to find a straight line through town especially if you're going east-west on the northern side of town. It's been a challenge driving and finding everything. check out a map of the city you'll know what I mean.

[mayor_brando 8]

Omaha is practically all grid, only in the outer suburbs does it get curvy. As another member said before, "You can never get lost in Omaha!"

When I build my cities, I like to use grids in the downtown areas, and I also use some in the midtown areas, and then I just let the streets and roads go freeform in the suburbs.

[RedImperator 16]

My cities are strongly influenced by Philadelphia and Manhattan above 14th St., so my cities tend to be relentless grids unless there's some insurmountable topographical feature. Still, for visual interest, I'll break it up somewhat with multi-block parks, and for variation I'll have every x road be an avenue or even a boulevard (two one-way roads with a one-tile gap in between, filled with Marrast's avenue dividers or some kind of public transportation). The thing is, with Sim City, the grid is by far the easiest way to organize your cities anyway, since buildings won't align to anything else save for a handful of custom content with overhanging props.

[Kusajika Yachiru 9]

I would spice things up by making my grids also go horizontal but as Redlmperator said buildings refuse to want to properly aling to that fashion...

Oh yeah don't a lot of cities like London have bad traffic problems becuse the streets were made to narrow for todays cars and also because of all of winding roads and things you get bad traffic... right?

[RedImperator 16]

Originally posted by: Kusajika Yachiru

I would spice things up by making my grids also go horizontal but as Redlmperator said buildings refuse to want to properly aling to that fashion...

Oh yeah don't a lot of cities like London have bad traffic problems becuse the streets were made to narrow for todays cars and also because of all of winding roads and things you get bad traffic... right?quote>

  To an extent.  However, Manhattan has wide, straight streets and the traffic is so bad they're considering instituting congestion fees, just like London has.  Los Angeles, Houson, and Atlanta freeways can be twelve lanes wide or somesuch number, and during rush hour, you'll get to your destiation faster on foot.  In very large cities, congestion simply expands to fill all available capacity--add a lane to a highway, and an entire lane's worth of traffic that had been taking public transit or driving alternate routes will fill up that lane in short order.  It's not physically possible to build enough lanes to keep traffic always moving freely in places like London and New York, even if you eliminated all the bottlenecks--and good lord, if they tried turning London into Manhattan, the only way to fit it would be to bulldoze everything that makes it worth going to London in the first place.

[Cob92 360]

Grids are good if you want to make a realistic American city, but bad if you want a realistic European city. I usually make American cities similar to those found in Texas, so the city is a grid in the inner areas, and turns into a chaotic web in the suburbs.

[iGod 6]

Over here in Europe you will hardly find any grid whatsoever. Not even in the largest cities like London, Berlin or Paris. The cities just grew without anyone planning them out properly. But then, you're also right, there are a lot of problems involved with this. Like the way to narrow streets or simply the confusion in finding a certain street. It's like with the names of the streets, if for example, I drive around in New York City on the 5th Ave. I know that I will eventually cross the 31st Street. And that also pretty much just works with grids (Ok, I don't know if thats right but you get my point).

But if you try to find Goswell Rd. whilst you're in Cheshire Rd. in London you gonna have a hard time.

But also, for me, grids just look quite unnaturally. Of corse I use them in my city planning but mostly in the centre or in the suburbs. Yes, if you go around in the suburbs which have been build in the 60s and 70s, they are build in a grid-style as well.

[+Guest]

ya the futcher is full of grids

[duack 14]

Its not really simple to explain what has grids and what doesn't. I've noticed that most CBDs are grids but have random streets in them that go diagonal or in whatever direction. Definantly subrubs built in the 60s and 70s are very grided, but after that suburbs had more curvy roads to make them look more aesthetically pleasing and to force drivers to slow down. Highways on the other hand are hardly ever grided, so the grid in sc4 makes it difficult to make realistic highways.

[Ryusuke516 1]

Grids to me are actually quite nice, and that is kinda why i prefer older neighborhoods where i live. I always hated the pointless "s" curbs and such. In the suburbs of New York City, it is mostly a grid, (and some other planned patterns that are not exactly grids that curb around only one way but does not snake or anything) and the grid changes every so often. Sometimes the grids are offset too.

I have visited my family in Tokyo many times and there is a noticeable difference with the west side of the city (which is older) and the east side of the city (which is slightly newer). The west side of the city is very confusing and you need to know your way around because most of the neighborhoods and areas were kinda built in which ever way they would go without any real planning and the gridded areas are not very big (like 2 or 3 blocks). The east side of the city is a more planned out grid like area but the grids change a lot.

Pretty much for expressways all snaking around and such, the concept came much later than what most of the property lines and cities that were built, so they had to demolish a lot or snake them around property lines, and in even build them over already existing roads (you can find them that way in Tokyo).

Yeah but it won't kill me to not be on a grid or driving through a snaking newer suburban road.

[Legosim 14]

I like to build my cities like a spider web, confusing but effecent

[ford-prefect 5]

If SimCity didn't force you to make grids - and Cities XL wasn't so stingy about building width, forcing you to make awkward roads if you want them to curve - I would love to make those windy, nonsensical European streets, but grid-plans, New York and Philadelphia (whose streets I'm pretty sure were partly designed by William Penn himself) being the most famous. My city, Columbus, Ohio, is strange in that it's quite no-grid like, especially for an American city. The avenues and streets are inconsistent and only go up to 20 or so, the east-west streets don't go completely parallel across the main street, High Street, and the north-south streets are as equally random.

Also keep in mind that for European cities, planners like Haussman didn't necessarily want grids - Haussman built huge parallel avenues, but also diagonal ones that cut into the old windy streets, and the avenues aren't completely regular with each others either. It's just a different philosophy - though the lack of planning also has to do with it, proof of that is downtown Manhattan, which existed before they instituted the huge street plan.

[Kusajika Yachiru 9]

Originally posted by: iGod

Over here in Europe you will hardly find any grid whatsoever. Not even in the largest cities like London, Berlin or Paris. The cities just grew without anyone planning them out properly. But then, you're also right, there are a lot of problems involved with this. Like the way to narrow streets or simply the confusion in finding a certain street. It's like with the names of the streets, if for example, I drive around in New York City on the 5th Ave. I know that I will eventually cross the 31st Street. And that also pretty much just works with grids (Ok, I don't know if thats right but you get my point).

But if you try to find Goswell Rd. whilst you're in Cheshire Rd. in London you gonna have a hard time.

But also, for me, grids just look quite unnaturally. Of corse I use them in my city planning but mostly in the centre or in the suburbs. Yes, if you go around in the suburbs which have been build in the 60s and 70s, they are build in a grid-style as well.quote>

So what is sounds like and this also goes for others post is that the only real reason most cities over seas don't have a grid look or even cities in America (way old ones like Boston) is because they were planed for walking and horse drawn I mean though this is kinda guessing and stuff but I think if somehow they knew about our cars and other forms of transit of todays age they would have planned way different maybe not even a grid but I really do think the windy roads though as nice as they look only came out that way because no one could for see a gas powered hupin-hymer hehe... car btw

And a grid to me would be almost flawless if they could get those darn traffic lights in sync like simcity does lol how absurd to play a game of real life "Red-Light Green-Light"

[ROFLyoshi 1,760]

Sydney - Slap dash randomness.

Canberra - Non Gridded, with roads leading onto each suburb, much like a tree.

Melbourne - Gridded, except in the far east near the mountains.

Adelaide - Reasonably gridded.

Perth - Diagonally gridded

Brisbane - Reasonably Gridded

Sydney has the worst congestion because it is non gridded, Melbourne is pretty ok because of the grid, but the inner city is one lane and it gets bad. Canberra has a flow-style layout (it was founded in 1913) and is easy to get around.

I don't know about the other cities, but a grid layout should be better as it makes it easier to navigate.

[bigthing 35]

Liverpool- NOPE

London- NOPE

Manchester- NOPE

Chester- NOPE

Birmingham- NOPE

Leeds- NOPE

Norwich- NOPE

Ipswich- NOPE

As you can see we in england dont like the grid system's. Were far too complicated :-D

[reedalson 0]

Look at Detroit. Its downtown (the oldest part) is half-gridded and half-curvy. Then as you go away from downtown diagnoal grids are common until a point when the grids start to align with the base and meridian lines. For example, I drive around Detroit on Woodward Ave. I know that I will eventually cross McNichols Rd.

[shaylan221 0]

where i live in Phoenix, its all grid even in all the surrounding areas, Tempe, Gilbert, Glendale, they are all grid like which works well with the GLR.

[pauljs75 0]

I tend to make my cities cul-de-sac hell. Not because I don't like grids. (In real life I find such cities are easier to navigate because you can go around the block if you miss a turn. And most of the cities around where I am tend to follow a grid.) But rather because the sims tend to be rather dumb about finding their way around and I can control the flow of traffic better by limiting where they go. And also because bus stops or whatever seem to work from all directions if you put them where an intersection would normally go. If sims weren't so insistent on shortest possible route despite the traffic congestion, I'd be a lot more willing to use a grid. I guess I still grid the major avenues, but all the feeder roads and streets dead end.

Other than being easier to layout and navigate, I believe real cities tend to go with a grid after getting to a certain size because it makes things easier for maintenance crews (possible to close a street and divert traffic) and because emergency services can get around faster.

I'd probably try some even crazier stuff than cul-de-sac style planning, but unfortunately the software doesn't really understand how to build properly around diagonal or curved roads. Would be fun to do a proper mountain town layout (like in the Boonies or Appalachia) or one of those old pre-automobile haphazard planned cities.

[Cob92 360]

Grids and automobiles are unrelated. America was using grids regularly by the early 19th century. Cars didn't become mainstream until the 1920's.

[D2629 3]

I live in the city with europe's 3rd slowest average speed at rush hour, Bristol. Only Paris and Rome have worse conjestion. And let me tell you, barely a single right-angle. the average speed btw is 16.2mph and that includes ALL traffic across the city. (london is 16.7mph)

[pickled_pig 7]

Well, I build American-style cities, so I use lots of grid in center-city areas. Living in the South, the center of many a town and city here is a square grid, which turns into complete chaos a mile or two out. That being said, even if I am building a grid, my arterials usually curve in and out of the grid, a la Broadway in NYC.

As for grids and automobiles, all the gridded parts of Charlotte, NC (where I am now) were build before the automobile became the de-facto standard. The first neighborhoods of the automobile era in Charlotte were built around the topography of the region and the curved routes exiting the city.

[CLR95 11]

This is a map of my hometown of Graham, Tx. Its a small town of about 15,000 that is rapidly growing. Graham is home to America's largest downtown square, and one of the very few working drive-ins, and the biggest lake in Texas, Possum Kingdom Lake. The newest part of town is the south end, where the streets are curvy. The old part of town to the north and west, is a grid layout.

1st pic is all of Graham.

2nd is new southend.

3rd is old north end.