America's Grid Diversity

Greater Greater Washington's Daniel Nairn wanted a planning-related poster for his wall. So he created one (admittedly nerdy) poster comparing the various grids of American cities.

1 minute read

June 3, 2010, 6:00 AM PDT

By Nate Berg


"I scoured Google Earth and measured that quintessentially American grid in about a hundred downtowns around the country.

Of course, there are variations in block proportions within downtowns, but I tried to pick cities that had more uniformity than average to come up with a single prototype."

His poster includes typical blocks from cities like Portland, Kalamazoo, and Salt Lake City.

Monday, May 31, 2010 in Greater Greater Washington

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