Quote:
Originally Posted by craigs
Detroit's street layout was not a product of France or French planners, it was the partially-enacted plan by one Augustus Woodward, who first envisioned the unusual design in 1805. According to this history of the plan:
"Woodward arrived in Detroit less than a month after the [1805] fire, the citizens in readiness to begin rebuilding the village. Woodward persuaded them to hold off, however, so officials could consider the best way to proceed. Preventing the spread of fire called for broad avenues and large lots, which Woodward ensured featured into his layout. Despite such practicalities, few could have probably imagined a plan more fantastic than the one he finally arrived at: a system of dividing land into triangles, allotting each landowner the same area but under the new configuration.
Woodward traveled to Washington that winter to obtain approval of the plan, then returned to Detroit to lay out an improved version of it over the summer of 1806." |
That's very interesting. I would think Detroit would have some vestiges in its street grid from when it was a French settlement.
In Los Angeles, for example, its downtown streets are not true north/south or east/west. When Felipe de Neve founded the Pueblo of Los Angeles in 1781, the Spanish "Laws of the Indies" dictated that the town's plaza be oriented at a 45 degree angle from true N/S/E/W. In reality, they were only able to do a 36 degree angle from the cardinal directions because of the constantly meandering LA River (before it was channelized in concrete). This is why LA has a clashing street grid; as the city expanded, the Yankees introduced true east/west and north south streets:
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Do...4d-118.2467693
Notice to the west of downtown LA is Hoover Street, which is true north/south, and was LA's original western city boundary.