Huh? That's a take I've never heard before.
When I think of comforting, old places to live or travel to I think old European cities with a mess of Snakes and Ladders type streets, where getting around is extremely easy whether you're on foot, train, tram, bike or car. Grid layouts are an entirely modern North American system designed around the automobile. Well, I know they've been around for millennia, but I gather we're referring more to the modern grid system rather than what the ancient Mesoamericans or the Romans did. Detroit, New York City, Toronto, Los Angeles, Chicago etc are all primarily grid systems and the bonkers gridlock and traffic in these cities shows how inefficient they are. There are only a few North American cities not designed in this manner, such as Boston (MA), Providence, Pittsburg, Waterloo Region and a few others.
While a grid system has benefits, I think they're far outweighed by negatives. They are much less permeable for travel, the frequency of intersections causes congestion, they're quite often unsafer, they've been proven to be less conducive to socialization in communities, it can be quite negative in terms of planning dynamics and which somewhat related, often results in very segregated use of land by forcing development to be concentrated upon arterial roads, rather than scattered around. Fused grid systems can be a decent middle ground, which is how we develop most things these days on this continent. If I had to choose between living in a city that had a grid system like Montréal or New York City or somewhere like London or Paris, I'm definitely going to choose the latter.
When I think of comforting, old places to live or travel to I think old European cities with a mess of Snakes and Ladders type streets, where getting around is extremely easy whether you're on foot, train, tram, bike or car. Grid layouts are an entirely modern North American system designed around the automobile. Well, I know they've been around for millennia, but I gather we're referring more to the modern grid system rather than what the ancient Mesoamericans or the Romans did. Detroit, New York City, Toronto, Los Angeles, Chicago etc are all primarily grid systems and the bonkers gridlock and traffic in these cities shows how inefficient they are. There are only a few North American cities not designed in this manner, such as Boston (MA), Providence, Pittsburg, Waterloo Region and a few others.
While a grid system has benefits, I think they're far outweighed by negatives. They are much less permeable for travel, the frequency of intersections causes congestion, they're quite often unsafer, they've been proven to be less conducive to socialization in communities, it can be quite negative in terms of planning dynamics and which somewhat related, often results in very segregated use of land by forcing development to be concentrated upon arterial roads, rather than scattered around. Fused grid systems can be a decent middle ground, which is how we develop most things these days on this continent. If I had to choose between living in a city that had a grid system like Montréal or New York City or somewhere like London or Paris, I'm definitely going to choose the latter.