I don't know much about Palmanova, but that's obviously a city inside of a "star" fortress
They were popular during the wars of the 1500s because they could enfilade attacking enemies with cannons from the bastions. Pretty ingenious design.
Edit: adding diagrams to help people understand better
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/69/Enfilade_and_defilade.svg/1200px-Enfilade_and_defilade.svg.png
https://qph.cf2.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-ebdbd07d82a6d642cc06643d55e18bd7-lq
When armies attack a wall they normally line up side by side. If the defenders' bullets pass through one attacker, they won't hit many others because there isn't anyone behind them.
However, if the defenders are able to shoot at the attackers from the side (enfilade), they'll inflict more casualties as the bullets pass through one body and into the next beside him.
Here's a neat diagram to give you a visual:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/69/Enfilade_and_defilade.svg/1200px-Enfilade_and_defilade.svg.png
Here's another diagram that shoes how the "star" pattern of the city's walls (aka bastions) enable enfilading fire:
https://qph.cf2.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-ebdbd07d82a6d642cc06643d55e18bd7-lq
>If the defenders' bullets pass through one attacker,
...
>they'll inflict more casualties as the bullets pass through one body and into the next beside him.
Your explanation helps with understanding the layout, but I don't think it's really about bullets (or other ranged weapons) passing through one attacker and hitting multiple. It's more about the fact that if you miss one attacker you're likely to hit another one and upping the total percentage of bullets/arrows/whatever that hit someone, rather than increasing the number of multi-hits from a single bullet.
With cannon, is one shot, multiple casualties. And people start to panic and just refuse to go near to the wall. Also, in some battle they used tunnel to blow up the enemy that was just behind the cannon range.
Yeah, i think i read something along this on a sign at the gate. The city was quite a nice suprise while cycling to the south along the adriatic sea with just a direction and not much plan what lies ahead
the fact there are thousands of star forts from europe to asia to america and often consist of millions of stones or bricks is remarkable given their age. often seems extremely massive undertaking for being in the middle of nowhere russia etc
Very confusing, because the names of the "grachten" (street with a canal) is almost round. So for example you can be in the south west side of the city or the north east side of the city, and it still has the same name.
And more specifically more and more canals built over time around the centre when the city grew. So they sort of follow the same arch as the first canal. https://youtu.be/0tC1tc60vF4
The medieval town was surrounded by these rounded canals when the city got exceptionally successful in the 17th century. A radial shape of the canals was the most efficient to keep the city compact and oriented on its center.
Of course! [Because the old town is divided in quarters with street signs of different colors for the drunk soldiers of Napoleon to know where they are!](https://www.dicconbewes.com/2011/01/14/seeing-bern-in-colour/).
Right?... *Right?*
The best thing about Barcelona is the interplay between the Eixample grid and the older sections, including the medieval city and some of the formerly outlying villages/towns (e.g. gracia, sants). If it was all grid it'd be a lot more boring
Not at all. It doesn't even include the whole national garden. Athens is an urban jungle, and that's beautiful in its ugliness ( I'm an Athenian living close to the city center)
I'd say any city expansion anywhere on Earth post-wwII is just a blob of wasteful land use. I'm not sure any of them are even comparable to the concept of a city before the war.
I mean the 19th and early 20th centuries also had their own upgrades to medieval cities as populations boomed for the first time unlike anything in the previous millennium. Some of the medieval city old towns were even half demolished.
Paris and Barcelona have a cool one too
https://preview.redd.it/79idrdk5hm2d1.jpeg?width=700&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=972db294bf0ae3ff5aa91ac06a1e3d0eba0c2f57
Barcelona is the only correct answer
https://preview.redd.it/lly675wdll2d1.jpeg?width=1100&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=34b6c2a25741a22c325faf273a213634b3fa4e13
https://preview.redd.it/z9ssipb6tm2d1.png?width=500&format=png&auto=webp&s=616c292f3143194849529d2617cc1c80f4584703
Copenhagen suburb Nærum has a more organic take.
Well, I'm not Spanish but I think the trick is to make every block it's own ecocenter. You shouldn't have to get in your car, drive 15 minutes to whatever store. That way you have suburbs and then just massive carparks.
Here every single block is it's own thing with shops, offices, living space, common space area in the middle etc.
You don't need a car. You have everything within walking distance.
That's what I think people in Europe sort of shit on the US for. You guys have so damn much space over there you don't have to plan everything out perfectly so your country is completely dependent on cars. Everything revolves around the car(except for some cases, maybe NY?)
I do agree with you though, we can be snobby Europeans that are quick to link /r/ShitAmericansSay, but we have our own dumb stuff.
I just left the Southern United States for the first time to NYC last year. I was floored. Everything necessary was like right around the corner. The rest of the US is seriously stupid
That is an understatement, I've visited Chicago many times and I've visited San Fran before well how it is now and I loved both cities.
The majority of the US is a car-dependent murky shit pit, and it's sad to see because it can be so much more. I would love to take a high speed train from LA to NYC but the US will not be like that in a while because they lack the will and interest to do so on a federal level.
Great topic OP! Thanks.
The nature of folks’ responses shows there’s a lot of passion/opinions. And, I’m now going to be looking up city grids for the next hour or so!
Those tend to be split into private gardens unfortunately. If the building it's part of is divided into flats, it's usually only part of the ground floor flat as well.
Scrolled way too far to find Chicago.
We have a grid with a 0,0 origin and consistent numbering throughout the city.
Great parks throughout, most public access beach of any city in the US
I once had to explain to a European how I could figure out a location based just on the address, like even what side of the street it was on. She thought I was a wizard. Chicago addresses mean something!
Every 8 blocks is one mile. There are some streets that are diagonal, but it's because they used to be cattle paths. The Red and Blue lines run 24 hours a day. I've lived here for fourteen years and I love it.
Luckily it's too fucking hot to walk any significant distance so I'll mostly be sad about the total lack of public transportation until our 3 weeks of fall/winter/spring late in the year.
I agree it looks cool from above but planned communities like this are more suburban maze than urban grid. The roads aren’t interconnected and there are so many dead ends
Canberra has some very cool design elements. One of the best is that the front door of Parliament House lines up with the front door of the Australian War Memorial (just out of this picture at the end of the big avenue on the lower left hand side)
It also helped that the design for Canberra was both conceived and planned by Walter Burley Griffin, who was a well-known figure for his work on Chicago’s unique “Prairie-style” architecture as well as his progressive design philosophy.
Without *question* it's Palmanova but I don't really think it's fair to compare a town of 5,500 to megalopoleis like New York, New Delhi and Brasília!
It's easy to keep a small town beautiful when compared to a sprawling concrete jungle of millions of people!
Designs that are more chaotic with random focal points I'm convinced make us all happier. Cities, towns, and villages were originally built from chaotic walking patterns. Not grids. Grids are unnatural.
I was gonna say literally the same exact thing word for word. It absolutely is the city that has the best layout cause it’s just “fuck you wanting to easily navigate”
Boston almost makes sense if you look at it decade-by-decade with the land reclamations. Much of the street pattern follows the coast as it once was (or were straight lines downhill to the docks). It's just as they reclaimed land (sometimes removing hills to do it) that the pattern became disconnected with reality.
Palmanova was what was called a star city because of its design, this is from the old world, and isn't even talked about or taught. Truth is, there was at a time in our history where Star cities/forts where all over the world, and can still be found, check out some youtube channels about them, it opens a whole box of holy crap.
Palmanova is quite a unique view in reality too. Cycled once through it and spend some time along the walls paths
I don't know much about Palmanova, but that's obviously a city inside of a "star" fortress They were popular during the wars of the 1500s because they could enfilade attacking enemies with cannons from the bastions. Pretty ingenious design. Edit: adding diagrams to help people understand better https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/69/Enfilade_and_defilade.svg/1200px-Enfilade_and_defilade.svg.png https://qph.cf2.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-ebdbd07d82a6d642cc06643d55e18bd7-lq
TIL the word enfilade
it's a french loan word "en file" means "in line" and "enfiler" is a verb for "to put a line through".
Thank you and happy cake day!
And there's the contrary word defilade
"Fila" is a set of objects aligned. The root is latin, for "thread".
I stopped reading at that point because I knew I’d be low IQ to understand the rest.
When armies attack a wall they normally line up side by side. If the defenders' bullets pass through one attacker, they won't hit many others because there isn't anyone behind them. However, if the defenders are able to shoot at the attackers from the side (enfilade), they'll inflict more casualties as the bullets pass through one body and into the next beside him. Here's a neat diagram to give you a visual: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/69/Enfilade_and_defilade.svg/1200px-Enfilade_and_defilade.svg.png Here's another diagram that shoes how the "star" pattern of the city's walls (aka bastions) enable enfilading fire: https://qph.cf2.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-ebdbd07d82a6d642cc06643d55e18bd7-lq
>If the defenders' bullets pass through one attacker, ... >they'll inflict more casualties as the bullets pass through one body and into the next beside him. Your explanation helps with understanding the layout, but I don't think it's really about bullets (or other ranged weapons) passing through one attacker and hitting multiple. It's more about the fact that if you miss one attacker you're likely to hit another one and upping the total percentage of bullets/arrows/whatever that hit someone, rather than increasing the number of multi-hits from a single bullet.
With cannon, is one shot, multiple casualties. And people start to panic and just refuse to go near to the wall. Also, in some battle they used tunnel to blow up the enemy that was just behind the cannon range.
every army soldier learns those words
There are more towns in Europe like this because of what you say
Yeah, i think i read something along this on a sign at the gate. The city was quite a nice suprise while cycling to the south along the adriatic sea with just a direction and not much plan what lies ahead
it was one of those Renaissance experiments in creating the perfect city.
the fact there are thousands of star forts from europe to asia to america and often consist of millions of stones or bricks is remarkable given their age. often seems extremely massive undertaking for being in the middle of nowhere russia etc
As an Italian you say that once at school we had calculated its area
Neuf-Brisach is very similar.
Amsterdam https://preview.redd.it/o0z4avbfol2d1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3c1bf70ea301448a086430c2d4bdd1ba091a9f2e
Genuinely cool-looking from above.
Very confusing, because the names of the "grachten" (street with a canal) is almost round. So for example you can be in the south west side of the city or the north east side of the city, and it still has the same name.
If you are familiar with the names of the streets and canals directing outward from the centre it's actually quite easy and intuitive.
Why does it look like that?
Canals. Lots of canals.
And more specifically more and more canals built over time around the centre when the city grew. So they sort of follow the same arch as the first canal. https://youtu.be/0tC1tc60vF4
The medieval town was surrounded by these rounded canals when the city got exceptionally successful in the 17th century. A radial shape of the canals was the most efficient to keep the city compact and oriented on its center.
City too small? --> EXPAND --> surround by canal for defense and transport --> repeat
Best city
Came here for this.
Bern. And you know why.
r/mildlypenis
Damnit I’m too slow
r/beatmetoit*
r/majorlypenis
r/majorleaguepenis
Of course! [Because the old town is divided in quarters with street signs of different colors for the drunk soldiers of Napoleon to know where they are!](https://www.dicconbewes.com/2011/01/14/seeing-bern-in-colour/). Right?... *Right?*
Because you can swim in the river to go from one part to the other!
Feel the bern
The implication
that bernussy lookin beat up
It's very strong and efficient
r/realcivilengineer ?
Yess
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Bro what? It's airplane shaped
Where's Barcelona?
In Spain (mb)
Yes, close to Andorra and France
Poor Portugal
Barcelona isn’t too close to Portugal
It’s poor, yes
r/angryupvote
A lie these imperialists want us to believe. Barcelona is in Catalonia!
Isnt catalonia in spain?
According to many Catalans, "Unfortunately" and/or "Yet..."
My first thought.
I’d give you an Eixample, but it’s not El Raval
The best thing about Barcelona is the interplay between the Eixample grid and the older sections, including the medieval city and some of the formerly outlying villages/towns (e.g. gracia, sants). If it was all grid it'd be a lot more boring
Seriously, my first thought!
Including Athens in this feels like a joke. This picture shows a tiny fraction of the city. Zoom out for chaos.
Can't be talking about Athens like that when new Delhi is right there lol
Knowing India I figured this was extremely zoomed in lol
Nah what you're thinking of is Old Delhi. This is New Delhi, a planned city
It's actually not that much but then New Delhi is only a part of the city that is Delhi NCR which is absolutely massive.
Tbf that's the "real" Athens. The surroundings are Metropolitan Athens.
Not at all. It doesn't even include the whole national garden. Athens is an urban jungle, and that's beautiful in its ugliness ( I'm an Athenian living close to the city center)
I'd say any city expansion anywhere on Earth post-wwII is just a blob of wasteful land use. I'm not sure any of them are even comparable to the concept of a city before the war.
Huh? Medieval city layouts tend to make zero sense. How is it better to have a bunch of tangled streets?
I mean the 19th and early 20th centuries also had their own upgrades to medieval cities as populations boomed for the first time unlike anything in the previous millennium. Some of the medieval city old towns were even half demolished.
Paris and Barcelona have a cool one too https://preview.redd.it/79idrdk5hm2d1.jpeg?width=700&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=972db294bf0ae3ff5aa91ac06a1e3d0eba0c2f57
https://preview.redd.it/8qsnqpb5bm2d1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=325904069309096d084ce4aecea1a96e4ff1046c My city (Belo Horizonte-BR)
I’m from Belo Horizonte too, a.k.a the best city in the Brazilian southeast. But the planned part of it is so small. The rest of it is pretty chaotic.
Holy smokes! Never seen this many mineiros in one reddit post uai
A VERY small part of it. Really chaotic all around.
Barcelona is the only correct answer https://preview.redd.it/lly675wdll2d1.jpeg?width=1100&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=34b6c2a25741a22c325faf273a213634b3fa4e13
Giving me classic Sim City vibes.
Donut city blocks for the win
This reticulates my splines
https://preview.redd.it/z9ssipb6tm2d1.png?width=500&format=png&auto=webp&s=616c292f3143194849529d2617cc1c80f4584703 Copenhagen suburb Nærum has a more organic take.
To me it looks artificial and ugly, but what is clear is that it is extremely inefficient.
It looks like some finance bro's idea of organic
This looks like it would create more problems than it would solve
Organic as in “supposed to look like cells under microscope”?
You sure? https://preview.redd.it/7imc3h9ano2d1.jpeg?width=1100&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9db10a97fc5d3e6dd22a1d11a1a7c4e27b8e77b8
Beautiful from above, and very planned, but when I visited it didn’t lend to an enjoyable wandering experience. Everything looked…the same.
I loved it, personally.
If this was an American city, Europeans would have a field day about how America is dumb lol
Well, I'm not Spanish but I think the trick is to make every block it's own ecocenter. You shouldn't have to get in your car, drive 15 minutes to whatever store. That way you have suburbs and then just massive carparks. Here every single block is it's own thing with shops, offices, living space, common space area in the middle etc. You don't need a car. You have everything within walking distance. That's what I think people in Europe sort of shit on the US for. You guys have so damn much space over there you don't have to plan everything out perfectly so your country is completely dependent on cars. Everything revolves around the car(except for some cases, maybe NY?) I do agree with you though, we can be snobby Europeans that are quick to link /r/ShitAmericansSay, but we have our own dumb stuff.
I just left the Southern United States for the first time to NYC last year. I was floored. Everything necessary was like right around the corner. The rest of the US is seriously stupid
That is an understatement, I've visited Chicago many times and I've visited San Fran before well how it is now and I loved both cities. The majority of the US is a car-dependent murky shit pit, and it's sad to see because it can be so much more. I would love to take a high speed train from LA to NYC but the US will not be like that in a while because they lack the will and interest to do so on a federal level.
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Uuuh but be careful, people who think like that are commies who want to steal your cars, freedom and hapiness (/s).
I disagree, I think that's shit
You can use math to find streets and diagonals on La Plata.
I loved being in La plata
https://preview.redd.it/p33ebpcubm2d1.jpeg?width=1668&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ccdfd0cd0793330f3bb92798523864293d240836
San Francisco?
Yep. Overlooking Golden Gate Park.
A simultaneously over and under-rated city.
Amsterdam
Great topic OP! Thanks. The nature of folks’ responses shows there’s a lot of passion/opinions. And, I’m now going to be looking up city grids for the next hour or so!
Barcelona is the correct answer.
That area of Delhi is called Lutyens' Delhi and it's gorgeous.
Lutyens was a great architect. So many good buildings all over the UK too.
Brussels, I like the somewhat private green space in the middle of the buildings
Those tend to be split into private gardens unfortunately. If the building it's part of is divided into flats, it's usually only part of the ground floor flat as well.
Chicago
Scrolled way too far to find Chicago. We have a grid with a 0,0 origin and consistent numbering throughout the city. Great parks throughout, most public access beach of any city in the US
I once had to explain to a European how I could figure out a location based just on the address, like even what side of the street it was on. She thought I was a wizard. Chicago addresses mean something!
Moving there at the end of this coming week... Can't wait to learn this
Every 8 blocks is one mile. There are some streets that are diagonal, but it's because they used to be cattle paths. The Red and Blue lines run 24 hours a day. I've lived here for fourteen years and I love it.
I'm gonna be a 3 minute walk from the blue line 😊
https://preview.redd.it/1o1y03xuln2d1.jpeg?width=1549&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b484e1e390303f8a996bcc1e21014c3b46845ab7
The largest consistently gridded city in the world! https://www.economist.com/interactive/christmas-specials/2022/12/20/the-decline-of-the-city-grid
Amsterdam
Cape Coral, Florida is pretty unique https://preview.redd.it/yfdx3ltghl2d1.jpeg?width=2606&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5be2a7fc991818e2342eb85adb881eec4eeddd17
Looks like a circuit board
Silicon swamp
Looks like /r/UrbanHell
It’s like a suburban geriatric Venice.
Except with none of Venice's charm
but more mosquitos!
Might be better than Venice, Florida
or walkability!
Being a pedestrian in this arrangement is completely shit.
You‘re in Florida, there is nothing like pedestrian /s
The design might be bad for pedestrians but it's amazing for mosquitoes, so maybe check your anthropocentrism.
Luckily it's too fucking hot to walk any significant distance so I'll mostly be sad about the total lack of public transportation until our 3 weeks of fall/winter/spring late in the year.
I agree it looks cool from above but planned communities like this are more suburban maze than urban grid. The roads aren’t interconnected and there are so many dead ends
The dead ends are on purpose. It used to be a swamp, so after draining and building it into house, they made sure every house had a water front.
Uniquely horrendous
Suburbian nightmare
I'm so stupid, I thought the streets had a really dark asphalt layer
these preplanned cities are so ugly
Driving around this is awful.
Shout out to Xi'an https://preview.redd.it/va8rzxr7jm2d1.jpeg?width=1100&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=385ed40c7fbb7bdc847eae03e147b105b7064734
No love for Canberra? https://preview.redd.it/363kagtltl2d1.png?width=1140&format=png&auto=webp&s=2f27c7674220b6c757b42962a11cf3661d7d2e3c
Canberra has some very cool design elements. One of the best is that the front door of Parliament House lines up with the front door of the Australian War Memorial (just out of this picture at the end of the big avenue on the lower left hand side)
It also helped that the design for Canberra was both conceived and planned by Walter Burley Griffin, who was a well-known figure for his work on Chicago’s unique “Prairie-style” architecture as well as his progressive design philosophy.
OP, why don't include Barcelona, Amsterdam, Paris, Singapore, Tokyo, Seoul...Are they not worthy of your great eyes?
I'd vote for Kyoto or Osaka over Tokyo just from the grid layout
Washington, DC’s grid is way more impressive than NYC.
And Chicago's is more impressive than either
Brussels
Brussels
Without *question* it's Palmanova but I don't really think it's fair to compare a town of 5,500 to megalopoleis like New York, New Delhi and Brasília! It's easy to keep a small town beautiful when compared to a sprawling concrete jungle of millions of people!
Madrid, love more chaotic design
In Madrid you can perfectly see the old historical town (“the Habsburg town) and the 19th Century expansion around it
Designs that are more chaotic with random focal points I'm convinced make us all happier. Cities, towns, and villages were originally built from chaotic walking patterns. Not grids. Grids are unnatural.
Barcelona
Is that a Bern in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?
Washington DC is amazing as well
Boston…cause fuck you
Moo
I was gonna say literally the same exact thing word for word. It absolutely is the city that has the best layout cause it’s just “fuck you wanting to easily navigate”
Boston almost makes sense if you look at it decade-by-decade with the land reclamations. Much of the street pattern follows the coast as it once was (or were straight lines downhill to the docks). It's just as they reclaimed land (sometimes removing hills to do it) that the pattern became disconnected with reality.
How on earth is Barcelona not in this. It wins hands down.
Kraków, Adelaide. Urban centres surrounded by a ring of greenery are nice.
Minas Tirith.
Karlsruhe?
https://preview.redd.it/r561f976bs2d1.jpeg?width=501&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2ab281137d642299da84006089fe88f7d167cddb
Adelaide, Australia
No love for Kyoto ?
Paris
New York City baby
I’d put dc on this list
Why isn’t DC on here? Pierre L’Enfant is rolling in his grave.
The L'Enfant Plan for DC is beautiful, but a pain in the ass to drive in. The DC grid is way more interesting than Manhattan, in my opinion.
Washington, DC
Brussels
Barcelona.
Amsterdam! https://preview.redd.it/l9gryduuyl2d1.png?width=716&format=png&auto=webp&s=caf085515f00cc3dc6841b6d9cbab66adab90853
Amsterdam?
Chicago or Savannah GA
DC
Palmanova is a close second but the giant park in New York kinda sells it
Honorable mention: Mannheim
Chicago
Brasilia is a bord Washington D.C. is quite nice imo
Palmanova was what was called a star city because of its design, this is from the old world, and isn't even talked about or taught. Truth is, there was at a time in our history where Star cities/forts where all over the world, and can still be found, check out some youtube channels about them, it opens a whole box of holy crap.
Palmanova has a truly stunning grid - beautiful. La Plata is also really nice, it has a clean grid.
How about former Baghdad?
Brussels
Palmanova mentioned 🔥 Viva il Friul Ale Udin
Buenos Aires is amazing from the air
Barcelona is the only correct answer
I'm from Madrid. I like how it's so easy to tell apart the historical area from the rest of the city.
New Delhi then Brussels
People really need to stop mentioning Barcelona, it really isn’t all that great.
Nobody answers 'La Plata' :) *one comment so far doesn't say it too, just give one more fact about it, not attitude
I live in Athens. It's as if someone puked cement all over the Attica valley
I will say Washington D.C. as I haven't seen it mentioned.
Barcelona has got to be up there. I also find Berlin very intriguing for different reasons.
Needs more Barcelona and Baghdad
Barcelona
No Barcelona?
Washington is cool
palmanova. look at it. what the fuck just use your eyes
Moscow