grid

Goodbee Square: the Quest for a Contemporary Urban Pattern

Duany Plater-Zyberk and Company was hired to turn a greenfield about 50 miles north of New Orleans into a 1,280-unit blend of town and rural living. In the process, they proposed a radical new way of looking at the street grid. Fanis Grammenos explains.

24 August 2009 - 5:00am

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7 comments

Smart Growth: Claustrophobic, Unsafe, and Bad for Gas Mileage

Rick Harrison argues that smart growth looks good on paper, but in application the density creates a whole host of problems.

17 May 2009 - 1:00pm

New Geography

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8 comments

Ancient Cities Found in the Amazon

Anthropologists have discovered traces of highly organized and gridded cities in the Amazon rainforest dating back to the 1200s.

31 August 2008 - 1:00pm

National Geographic

Michael Lewyn

Culs-de-Sac and Grids: A Middle Ground (Or Two, Or Three)

Thu, 08/28/2008 - 12:57

Smart growth supporters tend to prefer grid systems to cul-de-sacs, for excellent reasons. A proliferation of cul-de-sacs artificially lengthens walking distances: if streets don’t connect to each other, you might have to walk a mile to go just a few hundred feet. In addition, cul-de-sacs increase traffic congestion by dumping most vehicular traffic on a few major streets. And because biking is less safe on busy, high-traffic streets, bikers benefit from a grid system as well.

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