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."
Threaded Mode