Editing Grid plan (section)

===Early United States (17th-19th centuries)===
[[File:Grid 1811.jpg|thumb|left|[[Commissioners' Plan of 1811]] for [[Manhattan]]|344x344px]] [[File:Savannah Portland NewYork City Blocks.svg|right|thumb|A diagram of three U.S. city grids at the same scale showing the differences in dimensions and configuration]] [[File:American Grid Comparison.jpg|thumbnail|left|Twenty American grids compared at the same scale]] [[File:Map of the Original City of Philadelphia in 1682 by Thomas Holme.jpg|thumb|Map of the Original City of Philadelphia in 1682 by Thomas Holme]]
Many of the earliest cities in the United States, such as [[Boston]], did not start with a grid system.<ref>[[Back Bay]], [[Dorchester Heights]], and [[South Boston]] all have grid layouts.</ref> However, even in pre-revolutionary days some cities saw the benefits of such a layout. [[New Haven Colony]], one of the earliest colonies in America, was designed with a tiny 9-square grid at its founding in 1638. On a grander scale, [[Philadelphia]] was designed on a rectilinear street grid in 1682, one of the first cities in North America to use a grid system.<ref name="crabgrass">{{cite crabgrass}}</ref><ref>[http://www.explorepahistory.com/story.php?storyId=3&chapter=3&page=2 ExplorePaHistory.com<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref> At the urging of city founder [[William Penn]], surveyor [[Thomas Holme]] designed a system of wide streets intersecting at right angles between the [[Schuylkill River]] to the west and the [[Delaware River]] to the east, including five squares of dedicated parkland. Penn advertised this orderly design as a safeguard against overcrowding, fire, and disease, which plagued European cities. Holme drafted an ideal version of the grid,<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.swarthmore.edu/Humanities/kjohnso1/pictures/tholme1683inch9.jpg |title=Archived copy |access-date=2007-04-08 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070420061427/http://www.swarthmore.edu/Humanities/kjohnso1/pictures/tholme1683inch9.jpg |archive-date=2007-04-20 }} Swarthmore College</ref> but alleyways sprouted within and between larger blocks as the city took shape. As the United States expanded westward, grid-based city planning modeled on Philadelphia's layout would become popular among frontier cities, making grids ubiquitous across the country.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.thegreatamericangrid.com/archives/777 |title=The Great American Grid – A History of the American Grid in 4 Minutes |website=www.thegreatamericangrid.com |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131108174122/http://www.thegreatamericangrid.com/archives/777 |archive-date=2013-11-08}}</ref>

Another well-known grid plan is the plan for [[New York City]] formulated in the [[Commissioners' Plan of 1811]], a proposal by the state [[legislature]] of [[New York (state)|New York]] for the development of most of [[Manhattan]]<ref>Landers, John ''Twelve Historical New York City Street and Transit Maps from 1860 to 1967'' {{ISBN|1-882608-16X}}</ref> above [[Houston Street]].

[[File:L'Enfant plan.jpg|thumb|The [[L'Enfant Plan]] for [[Washington, D.C.]], set out a north–south, east–west grid pattern with diagonal streets radiating out from the [[U.S. Capitol]].]]
[[Washington, D.C.]], the capital of the [[United States]], was planned under [[French-American]] architect [[Pierre Charles L'Enfant]]. Under the L'Enfant plan, the original [[District of Columbia]] was developed using a grid plan that is interrupted by diagonal avenues, most famously [[Pennsylvania Avenue (Washington, D.C.)|Pennsylvania Avenue]]. These diagonals are often connected by [[traffic circle]]s, such as [[Dupont Circle]] and [[Washington Circle]]. As the city grew, the plan was duplicated to cover most of the remainder of the capital. Meanwhile, the core of the city faced disarray and the [[McMillan Plan]], led by Senator [[James McMillan (politician)|James McMillan]], was adopted to build a [[National Mall]] and a parks system that is still today a jewel of the city.

Often, some of the streets in a grid are numbered (First, Second, etc.), lettered, or arranged in alphabetical order. Downtown [[San Diego]] uses all three schemes: north–south streets are numbered from west to east, and east–west streets are split between a lettered series running southward from A through L and a series of streets named after trees or plants, running northward alphabetically from Ash to Walnut. As in many cities, some of these streets have been given new names violating the system (the former D Street is now Broadway, the former 12th Avenue is now Park Boulevard, etc.); this has meant that 2nd, not 1st, is the most common street name in the United States.<ref>[http://www.nlc.org/build-skills-and-networks/resources/cities-101/city-factoids/most-common-us-street-names NATIONAL LEAGUE OF CITIES: Most Common U.S. Street Names at nlc.org] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130216150500/http://www.nlc.org/build-skills-and-networks/resources/cities-101/city-factoids/most-common-us-street-names |date=2013-02-16 }} Accessed 16 May 2017</ref>

An exception to the typical, uniform grid is the plan of [[Savannah, Georgia]] (1733), known as the [[Oglethorpe Plan]]. It is a composite, cellular city block consisting of four large corner blocks, four small blocks in between and a public square in the centre; the entire composition of approximately ten acres (four hectares) is known as a ward.<ref>Wilson, T. ''The Oglethorpe Plan''. University of Virginia Press, 2012.</ref> Its cellular structure includes all the primary land uses of a neighborhood and has for that reason been called [[fractal]].<ref>Batty, M. & Longley, P. (1994) Fractal Cities: A Geometry of Form and Function (San Diego, Calif.: Academic)</ref>  Its street configuration presages modern traffic calming techniques applied to uniform grids where certain selected streets become discontinuous or narrow, thus discouraging through traffic. The configuration also represents an example of functional [[shared space]], where pedestrian and vehicular traffic can safely and comfortably coexist.<ref>Wilson, T. ''The Oglethorpe Plan'', p. 175</ref>

In the westward development of the United States, the use of the grid plan was nearly universal in the construction of new settlements, such as in [[Salt Lake City]] (1870), [[Dodge City]] (1872) and [[Oklahoma City]] (1890). In these western cities the streets were numbered even more carefully than in the east to suggest future prosperity and metropolitan status.<ref name="crabgrass" />

One of the main advantages of the grid plan was that it allowed the rapid [[subdivision (land)|subdivision]] and [[auction]] of a large parcel of land. For example, when the legislature of the [[Republic of Texas]] decided in 1839 to move the capital to a new site along the [[Colorado River (Texas)|Colorado River]], the functioning of the government required the rapid population of the town, which was named [[Austin, Texas|Austin]]. Charged with the task, [[Edwin Waller]] designed a fourteen-block grid that fronted the river on 640 acres (exactly 1 square mile; about 2.6&nbsp;km<sup>2</sup>). After surveying the land, Waller organized the almost immediate sale of 306 lots, and by the end of the year the entire Texas government had arrived by [[cart|oxcart]] at the new site. Apart from the speed of surveying advantage, the rationale at the time of the grid's adoption in this and other cities remains obscure.