Compare And Contrast: One Of The Best Grid System

Because of the Commissioner’s Plan, Manhattan has one of the best grid systems in the United States. The original topography was altered to accommodate road construction, streets were numbered, and the city landscape was changed throughout the grid building process. The effect of the grid on Manhattan, if viewed from different angles, is debatable, but overall the benefits from adopting the grid system outweigh its costs. If the grid had been irregular in Manhattan, the land use would not have been as efficient, and the local government would have had a hard time accommodating population growth, resulting in an entirely different local economy. Although there are certain advantages in adopting an irregular grid, such as maintaining the original city landscape, the regular grid system is proven to benefit the city real estate and life in the city more. The disadvantages of the irregular grid exceed its benefits. Unlike the regular grid, most streets are not numbered in the irregular grid, creating two problems: a) harder to navigate the city, and b) duplicative street names are not replaced, potentially causing confusion. In addition, because the lot sizes are unpredictable in the irregular grid, lots are hard to be adjusted after built. When the city has large inflows of immigrants, the irregular grid will make

After the regular grid was built in Manhattan, six north-south streets are crossed by the diagonal of Broadway, and those crossings eventually became important public places: Columbus Circle, Union Square, Times Square, and Madison Square (Garvin, 139). In cities with spider-web grid system, such as Boston, the crossings are less than in cities with regular grid. Meanwhile, if Manhattan had maintained its original topography, which was fairly hilly, the many real estate properties would have been more costly to build and thus might not have even existed