Road Structure
The arrangement of streets and large thoroughfares in cities can be further divided into various arrangements throughout the different regions of the world. The structure of the roads themselves is usually representative of the dominant culture of the region. Roads and Streets are used as a Skeleton of the city.
- Europe: A ringed weblike structure is typically found in European cities. Medieval European towns were typically constructed around a church or cathedral. Cities founded prior to Christian influence were built around temples and other structures of cultural significance. Roads usually radiate outward from this central nucleus. The very centre of towns dating back to Roman times can be based on the grid pattern of a Roman Castra. This is the case for Vienna.
- North America: A gridlike pattern is common in North American cities, which unlike European Cities, are typically built around a central business district. Early colonial cities such as Boston show a hybrid of the central nucleus structure and the grid structure. In Southwestern cities such as Phoenix, this grid structure is astoundingly apparent in aerial photographs of the urban area.
Read more about this topic: Urban Structure
Famous quotes containing the words road and/or structure:
“Telephone poles were matchsticks, put there to be snapped off at a whim. Dogs trotting across the road were suddenly big trucks. Old ladies turned into moving—vans. Everything was too bright, but very funny and made for my delight. And about half a mile from my long liquid breakfast I turned carefully down a side street and parked, and sat beaming happily through the tannic fog for about an hour, remembering how witty we all had been, how handsome and talented ... [ellipsis in original]”
—M.F.K. Fisher (1908–1992)
“What is the structure of government that will best guard against the precipitate counsels and factious combinations for unjust purposes, without a sacrifice of the fundamental principle of republicanism?”
—James Madison (1751–1836)