GRIDS AND GLOBAL CITIES

We have just returned from our field trip to London. When talking to my friend in London, he told me a joke: “say one sentence to convince people that you have been to London” “what’s that?”, I was curious. “Mind the Gap between the train and the platform”.

Traveling from Manhattan to London makes you realize that you never see a half-meter width gap there. Thinking about it made me realize that it’s partly due to the irregular urban planning. From the maps above, one can see that Manhattan is precisely gridded according to a rectangular coordinate system (pic 2). The underground overlaps with the ground via linear subway trails, revealing the greater efficiency of the grid as a planning system.

Grids are not a contemporary phenomenon. As shown in Pic 1 above, ancient Chinese capital used the grid as a major element in its master plan. It simplified the circulation of people flows, making the centralization system running more efficiently. This urban planing principle in the Forbidden city is called ‘JIUZHOU QINGYAN’, which is based on the ancient eastern philosophy.

Pic 3 and Pic 4 is a comparation of maps of London and Beijing. It is apparent that the urban plan of Beijing nowadays is based on the ancient plan, with the Forbidden city remaining as its center, and expanding outwards in concentric rings. It’s easier for building infrastructures and easier for people who are not familiar with the city to navigate through the streets. 

Grahame Shane mentioned that Manhattan was built to be a metropolitan and a global city in the very beginning. I believe it when I walk its grid.