[Will Hunt]

Lovely stuff. I too was bothered that the Charlotte question wasn't answered. We need to know!

[cheque]

My US colleagues are interested that Charlottesville is very different from most US cities... I’m guessing it’s quite different? Never been there!!

The article's talking about Charlotte, not Charlotttesville.

I spent a few hours in Charlotte between flights once. Got the bus from the airport to the city centre where I ate at Burger King, had a conversation with a guy selling basketball tickets about Portsmouth (he used to be a sailor) and the fortunes of the Charlotte Hornets then got the bus back to the airport. It seemed to be laid out like any other US city to me.

[Oldmanmatt]

As a teen, I lived in San Hose.
Almost everywhere I’ve lived or visited (beyond a days duration) resides in my memory with a mental map and I feel I could reasonably find my way around, should I wake up in one of those places, unexpectedly (scary thought).

But not San Hose. Despite careering around the place on my bike, with my mates.

Yet, from that same period, I know San Fran (ish) and have a general feel for LA’s layout. I would have to google earth it, just to remember how far from the beach it was, despite regular Saturday drives to the Pacific...

[Oldmanmatt]

Ooph!

How bad is that, I even forgot how to spell it!

Age.
My excuse and I’m sticking with it.

[cheque]

Almost everywhere I’ve lived or visited (beyond a days duration) resides in my memory with a mental map and I feel I could reasonably find my way around, should I wake up in one of those places, unexpectedly (scary thought).

But not San Hose.

So basically what you're saying is you don't know the way to San Jose.

[Oldmanmatt]

Almost everywhere I’ve lived or visited (beyond a days duration) resides in my memory with a mental map and I feel I could reasonably find my way around, should I wake up in one of those places, unexpectedly (scary thought).

But not San Hose.

So basically what you're saying is you don't know the way to San Jose.

Frigging walked into that, didn’t I.

So weird, looking at it.
I really feel like Yosemite was “only an hour away”, when it’s 200km as the crow flies!

 Must say though, it looks fairly chaotic, at it’s core and more ordered as it grew. More ordered than I recall, for sure. I was expecting to see a sprawling mess. I do recall everything being very spread out, compared to the towns and cities I was used to in SW Britain.

[andy popp]

You can force a grid structure on almost any topography - so i suspect it reflects both the level of planning in the city and how organised/fast it developed.

My historical geographer colleagues would love this.

I know it sounds like a crazy idea, but perhaps cities have histories?

Philadelphia is one of America's oldest cities (the oldest continuously inhabited street in the US is in Center City) but it was planned from the very beginning because of the nature of its founding. Topography is important - Philadelphia's position between two parallel rivers running NE to SW is perfectly reflected in its orientation - but the fact that cities such as Portland (presumably OR?) and Minneapolis show almost as much order as Phoenix and Las Vegas demonstrate the extent to which order can be imposed (there are perhaps limits, Pittsburgh, which is both very hilly and built around the confluence of three rivers, is notably "disordered" - its a test bed for driverless cars on the assumption that if they can cope with Pittsburgh they can cope with anywhere + Carnegie Mellon is a world leader in robotics)

[duncan]

I know it sounds like a crazy idea, but perhaps cities have histories?

Philadelphia is one of America's oldest cities (the oldest continuously inhabited street in the US is in Center City) but it was planned from the very beginning because of the nature of its founding. Topography is important - Philadelphia's position between two parallel rivers running NE to SW is perfectly reflected in its orientation - but the fact that cities such as Portland (presumably OR?) and Minneapolis show almost as much order as Phoenix and Las Vegas demonstrate the extent to which order can be imposed (there are perhaps limits, Pittsburgh, which is both very hilly and built around the confluence of three rivers, is notably "disordered" - its a test bed for driverless cars on the assumption that if they can cope with Pittsburgh they can cope with anywhere + Carnegie Mellon is a world leader in robotics)

Pittsburg? Piss-easy. Try Dehli, Cairo or Naples: not just geographically disorderly! [/off topic].

Any thoughts on why Charlotte is such an outlier? It's big growth seems to be from the 1980s, by which time central planning had become rather unfashionable, but doesn't this apply equally to places like Phoenix? Was the preexisiting layout already quite disordered and, if so, why was this? It's an old city (18th century) by US standards, but so are many others on the east coast.
 

So basically what you're saying is you don't know the way to San Jose.

 

[Yossarian]

Try Dehli, Cairo or Naples: not just geographically disorderly! [/off topic].

Old Delhi maybe, but New Delhi is spectacularly well-ordered! 

[andy popp]

Any thoughts on why Charlotte is such an outlier? It's big growth seems to be from the 1980s, by which time central planning had become rather unfashionable, but doesn't this apply equally to places like Phoenix? Was the preexisiting layout already quite disordered and, if so, why was this? It's an old city (18th century) by US standards, but so are many others on the east coast.

Me? No, no idea (and I haven't been, but will be going to a conference there next year). My stock answer would be that we would most likely find the explanation somewhere in its history, and history has huge doses of contingency. Even when deliberate planning is involved its important to remember that historical actors don't know what's coming. With hindsight, Manhattan island is a dumb place to put one of the world's most significant cities. But Dutch farmers pootling around lower Manhattan in 16-whenever weren't think about that.

An incredibly important factor, one ultimately derived from topography, is land values. Phoenix can spread out because land is plentiful and cheap (relatively). Manhattan has had to go up because land is incredibly scarce and expensive.

[Johnny Brown]

During my three years at Sheffield Uni the one fly in my ointment was the geography building. Despite all my efforts to do zero human geography I still had to have a faculty building whose hexagonal design was a tribute to Christaller, the german geographer whose attempts to explain the location of settlements failed on every level, relying as they do on the assumption that resources are evenly distributed. The whole point of the subject as far as I'm concerned is that resources are not evenly distributed.

It still annoys me if I'm honest. And normally hexagons are my favourite tessellating polygon.

[tomtom]

During my three years at Sheffield Uni the one fly in my ointment was the geography building. Despite all my efforts to do zero human geography I still had to have a faculty building whose hexagonal design was a tribute to Christaller, the german geographer whose attempts to explain the location of settlements failed on every level, relying as they do on the assumption that resources are evenly distributed. The whole point of the subject as far as I'm concerned is that resources are not evenly distributed.

It still annoys me if I'm honest. And normally hexagons are my favourite tessellating polygon.

Knowing folk there - and when I interviewed there - the building is a bit of a leg iron... the shape of rooms and corridors and it’s concrete construction make it very hard to adapt or change (eg to make lab space)

I like the nod to christaller - though it always chills me to think is plans were (as you indicate) for the third reich - where whole areas / countries? Would be razed to make way for the perfect world...

[Oldmanmatt]

Hexagons and Hexagonal prisms are so five minutes ago, though.

Frustums are where the hip kids are at now.

Get with it!

[Johnny Brown]

though it always chills me to think is plans were (as you indicate) for the third reich - where whole areas / countries

I had no idea of that subtext tbh. I just think his ideas are a pointless anti-geography.

[andy popp]

I like the nod to christaller - though it always chills me to think is plans were (as you indicate) for the third reich - where whole areas / countries? Would be razed to make way for the perfect world...

Central place theory does make some sense in the American midwest, where resources were initially quite evenly distributed and the place was empty, with nothing to be razed (at least in the eyes of European settlers). William Cronon makes quite interesting use of it in Nature's Metropolis.

[tomtom]

though it always chills me to think is plans were (as you indicate) for the third reich - where whole areas / countries

I had no idea of that subtext tbh. I just think his ideas are a pointless anti-geography.

They’re 80 years old now? Think the world is dozens of iterations on from that now. Not sure if it’s still taught in schools/ugrad. Suspect not.

[Muenchener]

Something that always strikes me walking around American cities: in European cities, neighbourhoods are generally villages that have been swallowed as the city grew, and you can feel when you’re walking out of one into another. In America you cross arbitrarily from Block 47 to Block 48, and suddenly without warning you’re somewhere where a naïve & defenceless tourist would really be better off not being.

[Johnny Brown]

Central place theory does make some sense in the American midwest, where resources were initially quite evenly distributed and the place was empty,

Yes, and lo, hexagons appeared! Or not,of course, 'cos politicians found rectangles easier to add and subdivide.

[Johnny Brown]

Which reminds me, if you've time here's Raban's brilliant essay Second Nature - The de-landscaping of the American West.

[tomtom]

Something that always strikes me walking around American cities: in European cities, neighbourhoods are generally villages that have been swallowed as the city grew, and you can feel when you’re walking out of one into another. In America you cross arbitrarily from Block 47 to Block 48, and suddenly without warning you’re somewhere where a naïve & defenceless tourist would really be better off not being.

That happens in the Uk too - though the lines rarely seem as severe...

Rayleigh (NC) went from white picket fences and immaculate lawns to fellas lounging on old sofas on the deck within a block.

[tomtom]

Central place theory does make some sense in the American midwest, where resources were initially quite evenly distributed and the place was empty,

Yes, and lo, hexagons appeared! Or not,of course, 'cos politicians found rectangles easier to add and subdivide.

I think (going back to something I read 20 years ago) that it’s very much a western train of thought - squares and grids that is. Shapes of things people build tend to be more curvy and circular in different cultures/societies.

Hexagons are really neat though - as someone who’s work involves dividing the world up into grid cells to model them - hexagons are blessed by being the same distance from all of their neighbours. It can make the math a little awkward sometimes when moving from grids to hexagons etc... though of course the whole world doesn’t fit into exactly regular grids very well being spherical.

I’m going off on one now 😂😂

[Oldmanmatt]

Something that always strikes me walking around American cities: in European cities, neighbourhoods are generally villages that have been swallowed as the city grew, and you can feel when you’re walking out of one into another. In America you cross arbitrarily from Block 47 to Block 48, and suddenly without warning you’re somewhere where a naïve & defenceless tourist would really be better off not being.

That happens in the Uk too - though the lines rarely seem as severe...

Rayleigh (NC) went from white picket fences and immaculate lawns to fellas lounging on old sofas on the deck within a block.

It’s obvious in Torquay.
They actually have a sign up.


It says “Welcome to Torquay”.

[tomtom]

😂

[andy popp]

In America you cross arbitrarily from Block 47 to Block 48, and suddenly without warning you’re somewhere where a naïve & defenceless tourist would really be better off not being.

Baltimore can be a very, um, interesting experience on foot. But the reality is that you are entering someone's neighbourhood and one that probably does feel village like to them. Its just not yours.

Despite gentrification etc. Philadelphia is still very much a city of distinct village like neighbourhoods. Its a great city for exploring by walking and I've never had any concern about doing so. The time we walked about 10 blocks across a really blown out part of Detroit late at night to get to a dive bar was probably not my wisest ever choice though.

[andy popp]

Which reminds me, if you've time here's Raban's brilliant essay Second Nature - The de-landscaping of the American West.

Thanks, this looks great.