A few other examples have been posted, but this is easily the wildest. It’s not even the same aspect ratio of grid, or at a normal angle to the rest, or over a very significant area. (And they’ve still managed to tie it in reasonably well)
I think that area was built when nothing else was there, without the developer thinking too hard about its orientation.
As time went on, new development started nearby, oriented to a different geographic element, like a shoreline, or a river, etc. eventually that development met the old development, and they were lined up differently, and the municipality stuck with the new grid system orientation and just built around the old one.
Yeah, someone deciding to clear out an area and develop it in a completely different way is possible, I guess, but seems a lot less likely. Maybe there’s a bit of both - something large like horse stables or a hospital was there, then it was replaced with a new self-contained development, and then they built out into the margin around it later on yet.
In any case, somebody had a big urban planning idea of some kind, but it hasn’t really continued to make sense as things changed. The angle could just be because one grid is aligned true north, and the other magnetic north.
To me what’s wild about it is that it’s completely filled with houses, and the houses seem to all respect the orientation of the nearest street.
You’d think that they’d say “Ok, well in this section we have these two roads coming at a narrow angle, let’s just make this a park”, or something to make the places where the two grids join a little less ugly.
There has to be some interesting history here.
A few other examples have been posted, but this is easily the wildest. It’s not even the same aspect ratio of grid, or at a normal angle to the rest, or over a very significant area. (And they’ve still managed to tie it in reasonably well)
I think that area was built when nothing else was there, without the developer thinking too hard about its orientation.
As time went on, new development started nearby, oriented to a different geographic element, like a shoreline, or a river, etc. eventually that development met the old development, and they were lined up differently, and the municipality stuck with the new grid system orientation and just built around the old one.
Yeah, someone deciding to clear out an area and develop it in a completely different way is possible, I guess, but seems a lot less likely. Maybe there’s a bit of both - something large like horse stables or a hospital was there, then it was replaced with a new self-contained development, and then they built out into the margin around it later on yet.
In any case, somebody had a big urban planning idea of some kind, but it hasn’t really continued to make sense as things changed. The angle could just be because one grid is aligned true north, and the other magnetic north.
To me what’s wild about it is that it’s completely filled with houses, and the houses seem to all respect the orientation of the nearest street.
You’d think that they’d say “Ok, well in this section we have these two roads coming at a narrow angle, let’s just make this a park”, or something to make the places where the two grids join a little less ugly.