Episode Details

City grids may look boring, but they quietly shaped the modern world. In this episode, we trace the rise of the rectilinear grid—from Renaissance Italy and the Spanish Laws of the Indies to Manhattan, colonial capitals, and purpose-built cities like Brasília and New Delhi. We explore why straight lines, square blocks, and central plazas proved so irresistible to empires, planners, and real-estate developers alike, even as older European cities grew organically and chaotically. Behind the neat geometry lies politics, power, and control: grids made land easy to divide, tax, police, and govern. So are grids just practical urban tools—or the architecture of authority itself?

Abbott, Carl, 'Streets and buildings', City Planning: A Very Short Introduction, Very Short Introductions (New York, 2020; online edn, Oxford Academic, 22 Oct. 2020), https://doi.org/10.1093/actrade/9780190944346.003.0002