Learning from Manhattan's Urban Imperfections

New York is a great city that breaks many rules of urban planning. Here's what its imperfections can teach us about city building.

1 minute read

November 4, 2019, 11:00 AM PST

By [email protected]


New York City

Nick Beer / Shutterstock

Manhattan does many things right from an urban planning perspective, including a well-connected street network, extensive transit system, grand parks and civic institutions, and a dense mixture of uses.  However, in at least these six ways, the planning (and sometimes re-planning) of the city’s oldest borough has gone against the prevailing notions about how to make good cities. From extra-long blocks, to gaps in the street frontage, to the prevalence of one-way streets, we explore a few of these planning imperfections and what we can learn from them.

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