Editing Grid plan (section)

====Ancient Greece====

Although the idea of the grid was present in Hellenic societal and city planning, it was not pervasive prior to the 5th century BC. However, it slowly gained primacy through the work of [[Hippodamus of Miletus]] (498–408 BC), who planned and replanned many Greek cities in accordance with this form.<ref name="Burns 39">Burns, Ross (2005), ''Damascus: A History'', Routledge, p. 39</ref> The concept of a grid as the ideal method of town planning had become widely accepted by the time of Alexander the Great. His conquests were a step in the propagation of the grid plan throughout colonies, some as far-flung as Taxila in Pakistan,<ref name="Burns 39"/> that would later be mirrored by the expansion of the Roman Empire. The Greek grid had its streets aligned roughly in relation to the cardinal points<ref name="Burns 39"/> and generally looked to take advantage of visual cues based on the hilly landscape typical of Greece and Asia Minor.<ref name="Higgins, Hannah 2009 p. 60">Higgins, Hannah (2009) ''The Grid Book''. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press. p.60. {{ISBN|978-0-262-51240-4}}</ref> The street grid consisted of ''plateiai'' and ''stenophoi'' (equivalent to Roman ''[[decumani]]'' and ''[[cardines]]''). This was probably best exemplified in [[Priene]], in present-day western Turkey, where the orthogonal city grid was based on the cardinal points, on sloping terrain that struck views out{{clarify|date=July 2015}} towards a river and the city of [[Miletus]].<ref>Belozerskaya, Marina and Lapatin, Kenneth (2004), Ancient Greece: art, architecture, and history. Los Angeles: Getty Publications, p. 94.</ref>