Highly underrated city, and last major city in Northeast that remains somewhat affordable. It definitely has its problems once you go out a bit more, but all cities have their issues.
@@blushdog personally I don’t consider a city a “major city” unless the city proper had over 500k and turns out Baltimore has just over that so you are right I underestimated how big it was
@@blushdog The city itself feels small though, lacks a real skyline and has a third the population of Philly. I'm actually surprised to see it has a population of 500k it feels a lot smaller than that.
Philly's layout is complemented by different subway lines, like the L (Market-Frankford Line; called the L because much of it is elevated), the Broad Street Line, the PATCO Speedline (which connects Lindenwold and Camden with Philly; it's 24/7 and was the first line in North America to use ATO), and the subway-surface trolley lines. The Center City Commuter Connection that connects SEPTA's regional rail stations goes underground in Center City as well. The trolley lines and the L actually run on the same Pennsylvania trolley gauge, which makes the L unusual (the trolley lines and the L use the same tunnel in Center City). Besides the gauge, the elevated structure was built of steel girders supporting a concrete trough deck, which then supported the more conventional railroad construction of rails laid on floating ties with loose rock ballast. This was done in an attempt to reduce noise and vibration, as well as protect the streets below from rain. And it and the MNR are the only railroads in North America that use bottom-contact third rail! 15th Street is the central interchange station for the MFL, subway-surface trolleys, and Broad Street Line. The subway-surface trolley then end in a loop beneath Juniper Street at Market before going back west towards their respective portals. Pyongyang is another great designed city. After Pyongyang was destroyed in the 1950s, Pyongyang was redesigned to become the ideal socialist city. Before the war, the city had trams, but now the city rebuilt its tram network as well as having a trolleybus network, a metro system (one of the world's deepest), and even bikeshare! To maximize the effectiveness of labor and production for workers, they created several leisure parks in the city so that the public could have enough rest and recover before returning to production. Pyongyang aimed to set aside self-productive units within the city. Pyongyang continues to be planned based on a unit district system that combines the industrial and residential so that residents can both produce and consume their products. Pyongyang's central square is Kim Il-sung Square, which is where military parades are held for national holidays. It is the "kilometer zero" of the DPRK from where all national road distances are measured. It is similar in form and design to the Tiananmen Square in Beijing and is used for the same purposes, but it is architecturally more refined with its dramatic riverside setting. The biggest building of the square is the Great People's Study House which houses 30 million books and was built as the "center for the project of intellectualizing the whole of society and a sanctuary of learning for the entire people." The Juche Tower across the river from the square rivals the Washington Monument. The Juche Tower measures 558 feet/170 m while the Washington Monument measures 555 feet/169 m. It opened in 1982 to commemorate Kim Il-sung's 70th birthday. It contains 25,550 blocks, one block for each day of my grandpa's life up until that point. And it serves as the backdrop for holiday firework shows. Micro-districts are made up of residences alongside their supporting amenities like public spaces, offices, shops, and schools. A key aspect is both the equality of the residential buildings and the encouragement of people to spend more time in the community, hence the focus on parks and playgrounds. Almost all cities in the DPRK have one primary central square, often the site of a monument, a revolutionary museum, or other significant buildings that either political or cultural. DPRK urban-planning also includes limited urban sprawl, as new developments in DPRK cities tend to take the place of older areas of the city, rather than building new developments further out. In Pyongyang, this is the case with the developments of Mirae (Future) Scientists Street in 2015, Changjon Street in 2012, Songhwa Street in 2022, Hwasong Street in 2024, and Ryomyong (Dawn) Street in 2023. Another wonderfully planned city is Washington, DC! The area given to District of Columbia was originally a diamond ceded by the states of Maryland and Virginia in accordance with the Residence Act adopted in July 1790. DC was designed by Parisian Pierre Charles L'Enfant, and was based on European models translated to American ideals. This plan was much more than the simple federal town Jefferson had in mind. People back then thought L'Enfant was crazy, but not Washington! The entire city was built around the idea that every citizen was equally important, with Capitol Hill (which back then was known as Jenkins Hill) becoming the center of the city from which diagonal avenues named after the states radiated, cutting across a grid street system. These wide avenues allowed for easy transportation across town and offered views of important buildings and common squares from great distances. The National Mall was designed as open to all comers, which would have been unheard of in his native France. L'Enfant placed Congress on a high point with a commanding view of the Potomac rather than a leader's palace on a hill like in Europe. However, the Virginian side returned to Virginia in 1847. This is because of several factors. Alexandria went into economic decline because of neglect by Congress as members from other parts of Virginia fought to prohibit funding for Alexandria projects in favor of projects in their home districts. Legislation required that no Federal buildings be built on the formerly Virginia side of the District (part of the compromise that created the Capitol), so it gained nothing in government workers or buildings. The main factor was legislation was in the works to outlaw slave trading within DC, and slave auctions were some of Alexandria’s biggest businesses.
I love that you included a clip of the Eixample in Barcelona at 0:00, because it's a pioneering example of modern planning! It was the work of Ildefons Cerdà, who is considered the founder of modern town planning as a discipline, having coined the word "urbanización"...urbanization! In the 1850s, Barcelona was on the verge of collapse. It was growing at an extreme rate, but it couldn't expand because of medieval walls. When they demolished the walls, they needed a plan to suddenly redistribute an overflowing population. Enter Ildefons Cerdà. His plan consisted of a grid of streets that would unite the old city with seven peripheral villages. He did a comprehensive study of how the working class lived in the old city. He calculated the volume of atmospheric air one person needed to breathe correctly. He detailed professions the population might do, and mapped the services they might need, such as marketplaces, schools and hospitals. He concluded that, among other things, the narrower the city’s streets, the more deaths occurred. He created a plan where the rich and poor had equal access to the same services. The layout was optimized to accommodate pedestrians, carriages, horse-drawn trams, urban railway lines (as yet unheard-of), gas supply and large-capacity sewers to prevent frequent floods without neglecting key amenities. The Eixample's iconic octagonal blocks (with gardens to hang out) was his unique idea to deal with traffic, allowing drivers to see more easily what was happening to the left and right! And that last part was during a time cars weren't a thing yet! When he learned about trains, he knew there would be some sort of steam machine that could run on the streets! Even today, this design makes traffic circulation infinitely easier in Eixample. He was a visionary! However, he wasn't who Barcelona originally selected. Barcelona chose Antoni Rovira, but the Spanish government intervened and suggested Ildefon instead, and this tainted Ildefon's vision, and many didn't like his plan because of the government. He died in 1876, fittingly in an Eixample-themed tomb. Decades later, Barcelona and the world recognizes the need to carry on his legacy! Some parts of the Eixample were influenced by Modernista architects, chief among whom was Antoni Gaudí. His work in the Eixample includes the Casa Milà (nicknamed La Pedrera) and the Casa Batlló, both of which are on the wide Passeig de Gràcia, as well as the Sagrada Família. Other architects who made significant, and more numerous contributions to giving the Eixample its characteristic appearance include Josep Puig i Cadafalch, Josep Domènech i Estapà, Josep Vilaseca i Casanovas and above all Enric Sagnier i Villavecchia, who's responsible for a total of over 500 buildings in the city!
Excellent video! One small thing I noticed that you got wrong is saying that Philly doesn’t have much single family housing. The majority of Philly is single family housing but in the compact form that rowhomes offer
Interesting point and on further research, It looks like you are technically correct, in some jurisdictions anyway (the term is defined by a local building departments and building codes). The common understanding of single-family home is typically a detached single-family home. But because of your comment, TIL that it is better to specify the 'detached' or 'attached' adjective for better clarity among everyone when speaking about SFH's. Appreciate your comment!
@@nishiki393yup, I’ve recently started to make sure I say “detached” when describing this kind of housing - especially when talking to Europeans. It seems Americans and Europeans have a different understanding of what single family housing is colloquially.
@@fearlessclanyt: indeed, we do. In England, residential properties are typlically multi-occupation blocks of flats, or houses occupied by a family unit. They can be detached, the most expensive kind on a largish plot of land, semi-detached, that is a linked block of several houses, or terraced there each house adjoins their neighbour.
Fun fact, in the 1950s they were planning to demolish city hall in order to build a highway running through center city but had to scrap the plan bc the estimated cost of the demolition was too high, really dodged a bullet there
such an underrated city. its walkable, affordable, great food/bar scene, and surrounding nature. lived there during med school and look back so fondly on those days.
Moved to this city about a year ago and I was in love from day one. Passyunk is one of the most unique and naturally vibrant thoroughfares in America and I'm so glad and relieved to live in a walkers paradise rather than the suburban car hellscape of the south.
Great vid! There is no name for the peninsula. It's either South Philly or Center City. BTW, Philly is actually 5 or 6 different grids that merge together in different places. The main grid is Center City, South, West, and North Philly. Tge Northeast, Southwest, and Northwest also have their own grids and Manayunk and Roxborough have their own grid. Also, Center City, South Philly, West Philly, etc. aren't neighborhoods. They're collections of neighborhoods.
Being a Philly native I found this to be an excellent review of my city. We don't call it the Philadelphia peninsula. We don't call it anything. If you need a word here let me introduce you to the term "jawn." Glad you had such a good time in Philly.👍
Great video. Philly is one of my favorite cities. There are plans underway to reconfigure the Benjamin Franklin Parkway and Logan Square that will reduce traffic lanes and help pedestrian traffic. I hope that comes into fruition in the coming decade. I hope that you will be able to do a video of the cap going over I 95 that will eventually reconnect the city to the Delaware River waterfront.
Just moved here from car dependent Charlotte and the walkability is why I like it so far i haven't been here longer than 2 weeks so my view could change but living as someone who doesn't own a car it feels so much better being here than there
Man, I love Philly. The city has fantastic bones. I'd love to see some strong leadership in reclaiming it from the car. It's definitely a city that could do with some freeway removal. Get 95 out of the city & reconnect the waterfront. Remove like 90 of car access from Logan Square. It's absolutely insane how difficult it is to be a pedestrian in that area, in spite of there being a lot of green space. Getting from Center City to the museum & the park beyond is a bloody nightmare. Remove a lot of parking and install proper bike lanes. It's a human scale city, at least the old part of the city is. Cars really don't belong in a big part of it.
@@youthproblem capping it is better than nothing, but honestly, I think the best thing for Philly would be total removal. We never should have built urban freeways in the first place, and now that's just prime real estate being used in the least efficient, most expensive way. I suppose another option, perhaps in combination with capping, would be to shrink it down to no more than two lanes, and reduce its speed within the city limits to like 30mph. That might encourage folks to avoid it and/or use alternate means of getting places. But you know that would drive the car-brains mad with rage.
Problem is our society is geographically dispersed. A ton of Philly residents are forced to work in Delaware and Jersey, similar numbers are coming into the city to work. Public transportation is often unavailable. Taking away 95 would ruin the city economically as these people and businesses would have to move.
@@matthewconstantine5015 Until SEPTA ups its service to the burbs and lays a couple more lines to the northeast, this just isn't feasible. Don't get me wrong, I hate having to drive my car to work every day, but one train an hour on the Wilmington line is just not gonna cut it. On the positive side, at least the freeways are kept to the perimeter and we built up the west bank of the Schuylkill so 76 goes under the street level traffic. Better than NYC spilling all of the Turnpike traffic into the middle of Manhattan, or god forbid Boston with freeways cutting through the city not once, but twice.
I've lived here my whole life and never knew that anything here was abnormal from other cities. I guess I just always took it for granted and assumed all cities were like this. Also, I don't think the majority of people in Philly realize it's a peninsula, so there is no name for it. We just have Center City, South Philly, West Philly, North Philly, and the Northeast.
Philly's grid is wonderful, but it also needs to be combined with pedestrianization of busy areas. This is still the USA and people primarily drive in the city. The traffic situation around Rittenhouse, for example, can get so bad that crossing the streets amidst all the chaos can be a rather daunting. This September, the city is planning to close the streets around Rittenhouse every Saturday/Sunday. This isn't for an event or market, just to give the streets back to the people. I hope this will lead the city to close off the area permanently.
That’s an awful idea. Closing off the streets around the park will create epic gridlock. You can’t close Walnut. It’s a major thoroughfare. There’s not enough capacity on the other streets to handle the increased volume you’d create by removing streets for the volume of traffic. That’s great and all you get you dream of skipping around the street. But some of us have to get around the city. It’s not all about you. Creating gridlock isn’t a solution.
@@mjt7231...and yet far older and more complex cities like Madrid, Paris and Rome pedestrianize the majority of their downtowns. These car-free streets are packed and lively, and the thoroughfares that do have traffic aren't at a standstill. These municipalities have good planning and implement congestion taxing. Downtowns are not meant for cars, either use public transit or park your car adjacent to downtown and walk. It's not all about you.
Thanks for a great video about my home town. As with Broadway in NYC, Passyunk Avenue is an old Indian trail which is why neither fit into a grid street layout. They existed way before the cities were born.
Philly is the best city in the US. Walkable, good transit, beautiful, tree-lined narrow streets, brick streetwall facades, beautiful shady parks lined by skyscrapers, world-class food scene (seriously, there is an impossibly huge amount of incredible food in Philly, it would take a lifetime to try it all), and to top it all off, rents are reasonably affordable, and we can and do build more housing. Philly has all of the benefits of a big city without the insane cost of living like you see in cities like New York. We actually have it all here.
In my time in Philly, I was always astounded by how rare it was I had something to eat that I didn’t like + how rare it was to see food chains, compared to a place like NYC. The food scene is beyond words.
"It was almost as if I was seeing pedestrians put cars in their place" that's a really nice way to describe how we aggressively walk into the street and expect cars to deal with it
I'm glad to see Philly getting some love. I visited for the first time a few months ago and was pleasantly surprised! Loved how walkable and well-preserved the old architecture was. I stayed in a hotel in Rittenhouse and once I parked my car, I literally didn't take it out for the entire time I was there since I could walk to everywhere I wanted to go to.
A great example of a grid layout inspired by Penn's Philadelphia plan is Raleigh, NC. It has the original state capitol in the center instead of city hall, and still has the four surrounding public squares (although one is now a community college campus and one is the governor's mansion)
I like your videos but it's hard to take in so much information in a continuous stream! You might think about adding in some pauses when you change to an interesting picture or have just made a meaningful point to let people contemplate what you've just said a little bit. Great job overall though, I love quality content like this!
I really enjoyed visiting Philadelphia when I was near the city during college. I loved its narrow streets, historic houses, and lots of culture and exciting restaurants. Rodin Museum, Schuylkill River trail, and the Philadelphia Museum are all amazing places. What I also loved is how they have a Trader Joe's and a Whole Foods all in the downtown area, making it very convenient to pick up groceries. I know Philly gets a bad rap on crime, but I felt very safe even in downtown. Kensington and South Philly give it a bad wrap, but there are seriously pretty places too. Washington Square West, Old City, Society Hill, Fitler Square, Northern Liberties, and Fishtown, are all really nice.
Not to mention Philly punches wayyy above its weight when it comes to public transit with multiple modes and so many connections. The only issue is that it’s aged and needs a lot of repair and renovation. But that’s happening slowly especially with new rolling stock orders. And septa get your stuff together
Fun fact: much of the planning for the area around city hall was designed and planned by Edmund Bacon. You only need one degree to know who his son is.
Philly has thousands of single-family houses, even in Center City. I think you meant to say that it doesn't have free-standing houses there. It's an important difference.
Great video, I'm intrigued about Philly now, and would like to visit one day. I've only visited the US twice, and found all of the following cities very walkable: San Francisco, Chicago, New York and Washington DC. SF and DC were probably my favourites, I think the lower number of skyscrapers makes them feel more human-scaled. Philly will be next on the list. As soon as I saw that grid, I was reminded of Adelaide, an Australian city planned in a similar way to Philadelphia, with one large central square, and four more smaller squares, one in similar positions to those in Philadelphia. Adelaide was founded in the 1830s, and thankfully the original layout has survived pretty much intact.
I moved to Philly a little over a year ago and all the good things people are saying are true. A couple pet peeves though are the insanely deep potholes and insanely large speed bumps. But yes especially on a less than 80 degree Fahrenheit day most walkable city I’ve walked all the way from 49th street in west Philly to Delaware river which is basically zero street
You forgot to mention New York City's Borough of Manhattan. Its southern tip, currently the Financial District, was a grid of sorts, but in 1811 the great grid of Manhattan was adapted and with several changes, such as Central Park, is still in place. Of course, I understand that the cities you mentioned, were originally laid out as grids, NYC was not.
@7:48 You forgot to mention the completely rebuilt and soon to reopen Franklin Square PATCO station, which had closed 45 years ago TODAY due to low ridership. The renewed vibrance of the park, including its use for the annual Chinese lantern festival, has given the station a new purpose.
Its nice to actully see a positive review of this great city. Soany people are wrapped up in the negatives, and they fail to see all the positives. Philly residents don't even call it Philadelphia. They refer to the neighborhood their from, I'm from Germantown, I'm from Manayunk, and so on.
This is a great video . Being from the Philly suburbs and taking forever to find my way around the city I’ve always told people to just picture a grid 🤔
All Center City. River to river, east to west is 3 miles also 30 blocks. All CC blocks are1/10 of a mile. South St. to Vine St which is South to North is early Penn design for his city. Thomas Holme was his main surveyor/designer w Penn feeding him his goal.
Fun fact the William Penn statue atop city hall being the tallest building until liberty one was built taller in 1987 began the Philly sports curse, no team would win a championship until a William Penn statuette was affixed to the new tallest spire during the ‘08 Phillies run which broke the curse
I live in Miami and its a joke. The downtown areas are just full of lifeless parking garages with zero architecture. There is no charm to the city. Its very dense in some areas yet, its very hard to walk without fearing for your life because the city refuses to make it pedestrian friendly. Just go on street view and see for yourself
Love it! As a Philadelphia we do put the cars in their place. Philly drivers are insane but you know what Philadelphia and is crossing the street when they make immediate intense eye contact with the driver.
I tried LA over 20 years ago. I remember driving with some folks when we missed an exit. Because of the traffic, it literally took us 1 hour just to turn around. I moved to Philly in '04 and have never owned a car. With the money I saved, I bought a house.
Center city is a lovely place to walk around. When my mom used to work at the old municipal building I would go down to visit her, but I would go down also to walk around. Penn's landing is a nice place to stroll. Also there are other parts of philly outside of center city to walk. It might not seem like it because these are considered "bad" neighborhoods, but you can still see the old city planning going on. I used to live in Nicetown, and there are still little plazas that were created to just sit and gather. We even had a whole street converted to a walkway where no cars can drive on. There are plenty of places in philly to walk around outside of center city imo
Great video! I like Philadelphia's grid. Yes, Savannah has a great grid. I live in metro Atlanta. Downtown Atlanta has a great grid, but the city grew in all directions and doesn't have a continuous grid.
4:23 Just a nitpick, most housing is actually single family housing, our city is made up of rowhomes which generally are single family lives in that house, some bigger ones are converted to apts, but most really are still single family;
I feel as though this video is too focused on the grid system itself. The overwhelming majority of cities in the United States are grid based. I think what separates Philly from other cities is the density within that grid system.
I believe New Haven, Connecticut was the first city grid system. It was by no means as massive as Philly/New York is, but forgetting about New Haven is a bit of a loss to the video. The New Haven “nine square plan” was created in 1638.
Really interesting video, I relaly enjoyed it, just curious about what was mentioned about "the new worlds' first city-wide street grid" when Spanish colonial cities using a grid already existed, por example Lima, Perú established in 1535, Mexico City in 1521 or Antigua Guatemala in 1543, to give some examples. 😄
The main reason for Penn to give the city a grid was fire safety. He had seen the devastation of the great fire of London that destroyed most of the city in a few days. The small alleys and lanes packed with wooden buildings provided constant fuel for the flames to feed on. Penn’s grid was divided into four districts by 2 wide avenues. Broad Street running north & South and High (Market) Street going east to west. Each quadrant had an 8 acre open field or public square and a 10 acre square in the center. These avenues and squares provided fire breaks. He also outlawed wooden buildings. Only brick & stone could be used in building.
I am proud to be a Philadelphian. Not as big and important as New York, nor as clean and orderly as Boston and Washington ... Philly is still far more affordable to live in and has the amenities of a world class city. I live in University City which has gorgeous large Victorian homes, shady streets, very safe, lots of cafes and restaurants.
All of the streets cutting though the grid are on the original Indian trails. And the street layout of Fishtown is the result of the city grid expanding north imposed onto the original grid parallel to the Delaware. To this day some of the street numbers start at Front St (east) and some start on Delaware Ave going west. Good video.
I was searching the comments to see if anyone pointed out the origin of the streets that cut through the grid pattern. The obvious examples that start to the north of Vine Street are Ridge Ave. and Germantown Ave. and of course these two streets continue for many miles into the suburbs. The really cool thing is that these streets not only were Indian (native American) trails, but most likely were originally created the animal population and just adopted by the Indians, so pretty amazing to think we are still using paths that most likely pre-date human population in the area! The same is true for Broadway in Manhattan.
Two hidden walkable gems in America that are cheaper than NY City, Philly, or Boston: Richmond Virginia and Savannah Georgia. I’ve had the pleasure to live in both. You can get a bagel and coffee for $6, a beer for $3, and you can walk from one side to the other without having to cross any 8 lane roads.
Richmond is indeed a gem of a city that reminds me somewhat of Philadelphia, although much smaller, of course. It has a grid street pattern with many old row house/town house neighborhoods. Richmond also has great architecture, museums, parks, etc. And the lower cost of living in Richmond is attracting many from the DC area in the same way that Philly attracts people from NYC.
the say the grid is the reason for the walkability, but you describe a lot of reasons that increase walkability that have nothing to do with the grid. for example the narrow streets and dense development can exist alongside or in the absence of a grid street layout. boston doesn't have a grid but accomplishes many of the same things. many western cities have grids and fail on walkability.
To be fair. South Philadelphia wasn’t incorporated into Philadelphia until the late 1800s. All the surrounding neighborhoods that isn’t downtown area were their own townships. Until they made Philadelphia county into one big city.
You don’t have to travel across the river to see single family houses tho you just stayed downtown and them areas around it venture out mt airy northeast germantown
Def is most walkable. Ive lived all over Philly. Walked all over. Best place i feel it Italian market, beela Vista head house square area. South. Beach is def. Very walkable but its like a micro city. You can walk river to river in Philly in 30... 35 minutes You can walk from center city to stadiums in south Philly under hour. Cant do that in south beach.
The "peninsula" you describe is just called Philly. The area west of the Schuylkill (pronounced "Skookle" btw, not gonna fault you for that since you got Passyunk right lol) is University City because the Drexel and UPenn campuses are there, and farther out is West Philly. Fun fact about the beloved City Hall: Until the 1980s there was an unofficial "ordinance" that no building was allowed to be built taller than the William Penn statue. After the 1987 construction of One Liberty Place, the first building to break this rule, Philadelphia's sports teams, which had been quite successful across the board through the 70s and early 80s, were mired in mediocrity and heartbreak. This coincidence was dubbed the "Curse of Billy Penn," and persisted until the Phillies finally won the World Series in 2008, finally breaking a quarter century of championship drought in Philly sports.
You talked about how narrow the streets were and chose some wider streets. A lot of south Philly streets are really tiny. It just means that it's even better!
Nobody in Philly calls the area between the Schuylkill and the Delware rivers , Arch and South st "The Pennisula." Save that for San Fran. It's just center city.
The Philly metro, the tri-state area, “the city”…. Then neighborhoods. Big city if neighborhoods. Directional names like South Philly. Also, by counties & town-names in the burbs.
Love seeing my city that I love getting props on one of my fav YT channels. But anyone planning to move here: it’s terrible, hellscape, would not recommend 😉
The city becomes less walkable as you move outside of center city and south Philly. There are other walkable neighborhoods but those are mostly segregated from each other and require some type of transportation to get between them. Other than walking to and from center city and south Philly. There’s not really any other neighborhoods you can easily walk to and from. The great NE is basically the suburbs. The city is much bigger than the grid in this video. To get to Northern Liberties from center city or old city is a bit of a hike. West Philly you have a bit of a hike to get past the river and the industry and 30th street station along the river. Fairmount to center city isn’t bad. You can walk around Manayunk but you need to get there. South Philly is easily the best walking neighborhood in the city. But I lived for years in Philly without a car. And it really doesn’t limit you at all. Having a car does help though. Fishtown and Northern liberties is walkable but only between those two neighborhoods. North Philly should be walkable but we all know why it’s not in some places. If you don’t know. There’s no reason to find out. Have lived in several different neighborhoods. Whichever one you are in. You don’t really venture past the next one over. If you do. You’re not walking. I’m not walking from south Philly to Fishtown or west Philly. Nobody is walking to Manayunk.
I mean... I think when we consider "walkability" we're not talking about it in that way. The relative walkability of each of those areas you mention is pretty consistent. Obviously you wouldn't want to walk from say, 52nd St to Front St. But pair the walkability of both of those areas with accessible public transit and it makes it very easy to live most places in the city without a car. It's also very much possible to make that walk, even if you wouldn't necessarily want to. In many cities around the US walking that distance wouldn't even be possible because there would be a massive freeway blocking the way.
A grid makes it easy to allocate land ownership and promotes legibility. The downside is it’s boring and makes for high rates of car crashes since cross junctions are where most collisions occur, even with traffic lights.
However as was pointed out in the video, since this is a very tight grid pattern and the streets are, for the most part quite narrow (and even more so now that lanes have been eliminated to provide bike lanes), the average speed of a car is usually quite slow, reducing the likelihood of severe crashes. Of course there are always tragic exceptions as in the terrible crash recently at 18th and Spruce streets that killed a cyclist traveling the bike lane - but the driver was very drunk and that was the cause of the severity of the crash, not the grid pattern.
@@southpond I was not commenting on the specific area but a more general point about grid layouts and traffic accidents. Cross junctions are the most dangerous part of any road network. The US has a lot and therefore compared with many European countries has a high rate of road fatalities. The UK has been designing out cross junctions for decades. It has 67 million people on a land area the size of Ohio. It had 3.2 deaths on the road per 100,000 in 2023, compared with 12.7 in the US.
I moved to Philly last year, and now I'm considering getting rid of my car. The only thing I wish is for the city to make the subway lines cleaner and safer. Additionally, I wish other areas I wished were easier to cross are the roads near the museum area and Callowhill street. Lastly, I would like more and bigger green spaces, which the city is finally making some plans for it.
![Seungmin "그렇게, 천천히, 우리(As we are)" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/kAzmhLHePqU/mqdefault.jpg)
I gave this video a dislike. Clearly this content creator hates cars.
Yes, I want that on the record.
You say that like it's a bad thing.
He’s just mad he can’t handle a v8
Hi, car enthusiast here. You're an idiot. Hope this helps
so
Highly underrated city, and last major city in Northeast that remains somewhat affordable. It definitely has its problems once you go out a bit more, but all cities have their issues.
Baltimore is also affordable but that’s for a reason lmao
@@Eli-ss9gjcalling Baltimore a major city is a stretch
@@RunD.Ones1s 2.8 million metro population is pretty major imo, was also the 6th largest city in the country as recent as the 1950s
@@blushdog personally I don’t consider a city a “major city” unless the city proper had over 500k and turns out Baltimore has just over that so you are right I underestimated how big it was
@@blushdog The city itself feels small though, lacks a real skyline and has a third the population of Philly. I'm actually surprised to see it has a population of 500k it feels a lot smaller than that.
Philly's layout is complemented by different subway lines, like the L (Market-Frankford Line; called the L because much of it is elevated), the Broad Street Line, the PATCO Speedline (which connects Lindenwold and Camden with Philly; it's 24/7 and was the first line in North America to use ATO), and the subway-surface trolley lines. The Center City Commuter Connection that connects SEPTA's regional rail stations goes underground in Center City as well. The trolley lines and the L actually run on the same Pennsylvania trolley gauge, which makes the L unusual (the trolley lines and the L use the same tunnel in Center City). Besides the gauge, the elevated structure was built of steel girders supporting a concrete trough deck, which then supported the more conventional railroad construction of rails laid on floating ties with loose rock ballast. This was done in an attempt to reduce noise and vibration, as well as protect the streets below from rain. And it and the MNR are the only railroads in North America that use bottom-contact third rail! 15th Street is the central interchange station for the MFL, subway-surface trolleys, and Broad Street Line. The subway-surface trolley then end in a loop beneath Juniper Street at Market before going back west towards their respective portals.
Pyongyang is another great designed city. After Pyongyang was destroyed in the 1950s, Pyongyang was redesigned to become the ideal socialist city. Before the war, the city had trams, but now the city rebuilt its tram network as well as having a trolleybus network, a metro system (one of the world's deepest), and even bikeshare! To maximize the effectiveness of labor and production for workers, they created several leisure parks in the city so that the public could have enough rest and recover before returning to production. Pyongyang aimed to set aside self-productive units within the city. Pyongyang continues to be planned based on a unit district system that combines the industrial and residential so that residents can both produce and consume their products. Pyongyang's central square is Kim Il-sung Square, which is where military parades are held for national holidays. It is the "kilometer zero" of the DPRK from where all national road distances are measured. It is similar in form and design to the Tiananmen Square in Beijing and is used for the same purposes, but it is architecturally more refined with its dramatic riverside setting. The biggest building of the square is the Great People's Study House which houses 30 million books and was built as the "center for the project of intellectualizing the whole of society and a sanctuary of learning for the entire people." The Juche Tower across the river from the square rivals the Washington Monument. The Juche Tower measures 558 feet/170 m while the Washington Monument measures 555 feet/169 m. It opened in 1982 to commemorate Kim Il-sung's 70th birthday. It contains 25,550 blocks, one block for each day of my grandpa's life up until that point. And it serves as the backdrop for holiday firework shows. Micro-districts are made up of residences alongside their supporting amenities like public spaces, offices, shops, and schools. A key aspect is both the equality of the residential buildings and the encouragement of people to spend more time in the community, hence the focus on parks and playgrounds. Almost all cities in the DPRK have one primary central square, often the site of a monument, a revolutionary museum, or other significant buildings that either political or cultural. DPRK urban-planning also includes limited urban sprawl, as new developments in DPRK cities tend to take the place of older areas of the city, rather than building new developments further out. In Pyongyang, this is the case with the developments of Mirae (Future) Scientists Street in 2015, Changjon Street in 2012, Songhwa Street in 2022, Hwasong Street in 2024, and Ryomyong (Dawn) Street in 2023.
Another wonderfully planned city is Washington, DC! The area given to District of Columbia was originally a diamond ceded by the states of Maryland and Virginia in accordance with the Residence Act adopted in July 1790. DC was designed by Parisian Pierre Charles L'Enfant, and was based on European models translated to American ideals. This plan was much more than the simple federal town Jefferson had in mind. People back then thought L'Enfant was crazy, but not Washington! The entire city was built around the idea that every citizen was equally important, with Capitol Hill (which back then was known as Jenkins Hill) becoming the center of the city from which diagonal avenues named after the states radiated, cutting across a grid street system. These wide avenues allowed for easy transportation across town and offered views of important buildings and common squares from great distances. The National Mall was designed as open to all comers, which would have been unheard of in his native France. L'Enfant placed Congress on a high point with a commanding view of the Potomac rather than a leader's palace on a hill like in Europe. However, the Virginian side returned to Virginia in 1847. This is because of several factors. Alexandria went into economic decline because of neglect by Congress as members from other parts of Virginia fought to prohibit funding for Alexandria projects in favor of projects in their home districts. Legislation required that no Federal buildings be built on the formerly Virginia side of the District (part of the compromise that created the Capitol), so it gained nothing in government workers or buildings. The main factor was legislation was in the works to outlaw slave trading within DC, and slave auctions were some of Alexandria’s biggest businesses.
I love that you included a clip of the Eixample in Barcelona at 0:00, because it's a pioneering example of modern planning! It was the work of Ildefons Cerdà, who is considered the founder of modern town planning as a discipline, having coined the word "urbanización"...urbanization! In the 1850s, Barcelona was on the verge of collapse. It was growing at an extreme rate, but it couldn't expand because of medieval walls. When they demolished the walls, they needed a plan to suddenly redistribute an overflowing population. Enter Ildefons Cerdà. His plan consisted of a grid of streets that would unite the old city with seven peripheral villages. He did a comprehensive study of how the working class lived in the old city. He calculated the volume of atmospheric air one person needed to breathe correctly. He detailed professions the population might do, and mapped the services they might need, such as marketplaces, schools and hospitals. He concluded that, among other things, the narrower the city’s streets, the more deaths occurred.
He created a plan where the rich and poor had equal access to the same services. The layout was optimized to accommodate pedestrians, carriages, horse-drawn trams, urban railway lines (as yet unheard-of), gas supply and large-capacity sewers to prevent frequent floods without neglecting key amenities. The Eixample's iconic octagonal blocks (with gardens to hang out) was his unique idea to deal with traffic, allowing drivers to see more easily what was happening to the left and right! And that last part was during a time cars weren't a thing yet! When he learned about trains, he knew there would be some sort of steam machine that could run on the streets! Even today, this design makes traffic circulation infinitely easier in Eixample. He was a visionary! However, he wasn't who Barcelona originally selected. Barcelona chose Antoni Rovira, but the Spanish government intervened and suggested Ildefon instead, and this tainted Ildefon's vision, and many didn't like his plan because of the government. He died in 1876, fittingly in an Eixample-themed tomb. Decades later, Barcelona and the world recognizes the need to carry on his legacy! Some parts of the Eixample were influenced by Modernista architects, chief among whom was Antoni Gaudí. His work in the Eixample includes the Casa Milà (nicknamed La Pedrera) and the Casa Batlló, both of which are on the wide Passeig de Gràcia, as well as the Sagrada Família. Other architects who made significant, and more numerous contributions to giving the Eixample its characteristic appearance include Josep Puig i Cadafalch, Josep Domènech i Estapà, Josep Vilaseca i Casanovas and above all Enric Sagnier i Villavecchia, who's responsible for a total of over 500 buildings in the city!
3:00 jawn is correct way we identify the land of philadelphia
That works - I also might use 'Philly Proper'
Excellent video! One small thing I noticed that you got wrong is saying that Philly doesn’t have much single family housing. The majority of Philly is single family housing but in the compact form that rowhomes offer
I think they meant to say single-family detached on all sides housing but yeah Philly has lots of single family not split homes
Interesting point and on further research, It looks like you are technically correct, in some jurisdictions anyway (the term is defined by a local building departments and building codes).
The common understanding of single-family home is typically a detached single-family home.
But because of your comment, TIL that it is better to specify the 'detached' or 'attached' adjective for better clarity among everyone when speaking about SFH's.
Appreciate your comment!
@@nishiki393yup, I’ve recently started to make sure I say “detached” when describing this kind of housing - especially when talking to Europeans. It seems Americans and Europeans have a different understanding of what single family housing is colloquially.
@@fearlessclanyt: indeed, we do. In England, residential properties are typlically multi-occupation blocks of flats, or houses occupied by a family unit. They can be detached, the most expensive kind on a largish plot of land, semi-detached, that is a linked block of several houses, or terraced there each house adjoins their neighbour.
I moved to Philly last year and I love how walkable it is! I have lost over 20 pounds because I walk to and from work every day.
Good job! Walkable towns are definitely healthier!
Fun fact, in the 1950s they were planning to demolish city hall in order to build a highway running through center city but had to scrap the plan bc the estimated cost of the demolition was too high, really dodged a bullet there
just one more highway! one more lane!
such an underrated city. its walkable, affordable, great food/bar scene, and surrounding nature. lived there during med school and look back so fondly on those days.
Moved to this city about a year ago and I was in love from day one. Passyunk is one of the most unique and naturally vibrant thoroughfares in America and I'm so glad and relieved to live in a walkers paradise rather than the suburban car hellscape of the south.
Congrats you actually said Passyunk correctly, don't worry there are plenty of other linguistic traps we have to catch non-locals haha
You can thank my Uber driver for that
The GOAT Philly urbanist!
Great vid!
There is no name for the peninsula. It's either South Philly or Center City. BTW, Philly is actually 5 or 6 different grids that merge together in different places. The main grid is Center City, South, West, and North Philly. Tge Northeast, Southwest, and Northwest also have their own grids and Manayunk and Roxborough have their own grid.
Also, Center City, South Philly, West Philly, etc. aren't neighborhoods. They're collections of neighborhoods.
Great video! Greetings from south Philly. We sold our car once we moved here and have not once regretted it. Love it here!
Being a Philly native I found this to be an excellent review of my city. We don't call it the Philadelphia peninsula. We don't call it anything. If you need a word here let me introduce you to the term "jawn." Glad you had such a good time in Philly.👍
The Delaware Jawn
"jawn" has no meaning to anyone whose education progressed beyond the 8th grade and not in the city's public school system.
@@SERVIUSTULLIUScongratulations you learned what city based slang is
@@SERVIUSTULLIUSnot that deep
@@SERVIUSTULLIUSI only went to charter schools my whole life a and jawns usage throughout the city is ubiquitous
Great video. Philly is one of my favorite cities. There are plans underway to reconfigure the Benjamin Franklin Parkway and Logan Square that will reduce traffic lanes and help pedestrian traffic. I hope that comes into fruition in the coming decade. I hope that you will be able to do a video of the cap going over I 95 that will eventually reconnect the city to the Delaware River waterfront.
I live in Philly and this video was so informative ❤
Just moved here from car dependent Charlotte and the walkability is why I like it so far i haven't been here longer than 2 weeks so my view could change but living as someone who doesn't own a car it feels so much better being here than there
Man, I love Philly. The city has fantastic bones. I'd love to see some strong leadership in reclaiming it from the car. It's definitely a city that could do with some freeway removal. Get 95 out of the city & reconnect the waterfront. Remove like 90 of car access from Logan Square. It's absolutely insane how difficult it is to be a pedestrian in that area, in spite of there being a lot of green space. Getting from Center City to the museum & the park beyond is a bloody nightmare. Remove a lot of parking and install proper bike lanes. It's a human scale city, at least the old part of the city is. Cars really don't belong in a big part of it.
Apparently there's plans to cap 95, at least around Old City, and also the Ben Franklin Expressway in Chinatown
@@youthproblem capping it is better than nothing, but honestly, I think the best thing for Philly would be total removal. We never should have built urban freeways in the first place, and now that's just prime real estate being used in the least efficient, most expensive way.
I suppose another option, perhaps in combination with capping, would be to shrink it down to no more than two lanes, and reduce its speed within the city limits to like 30mph. That might encourage folks to avoid it and/or use alternate means of getting places. But you know that would drive the car-brains mad with rage.
Problem is our society is geographically dispersed. A ton of Philly residents are forced to work in Delaware and Jersey, similar numbers are coming into the city to work. Public transportation is often unavailable. Taking away 95 would ruin the city economically as these people and businesses would have to move.
@@matthewconstantine5015 Until SEPTA ups its service to the burbs and lays a couple more lines to the northeast, this just isn't feasible. Don't get me wrong, I hate having to drive my car to work every day, but one train an hour on the Wilmington line is just not gonna cut it.
On the positive side, at least the freeways are kept to the perimeter and we built up the west bank of the Schuylkill so 76 goes under the street level traffic. Better than NYC spilling all of the Turnpike traffic into the middle of Manhattan, or god forbid Boston with freeways cutting through the city not once, but twice.
AY, MY CITY!!!! 😁
Hello from Philadelphia! 🥰
I've lived here my whole life and never knew that anything here was abnormal from other cities. I guess I just always took it for granted and assumed all cities were like this. Also, I don't think the majority of people in Philly realize it's a peninsula, so there is no name for it. We just have Center City, South Philly, West Philly, North Philly, and the Northeast.
Philly's grid is wonderful, but it also needs to be combined with pedestrianization of busy areas. This is still the USA and people primarily drive in the city. The traffic situation around Rittenhouse, for example, can get so bad that crossing the streets amidst all the chaos can be a rather daunting. This September, the city is planning to close the streets around Rittenhouse every Saturday/Sunday. This isn't for an event or market, just to give the streets back to the people. I hope this will lead the city to close off the area permanently.
Get out of the car and 'walk' dude
@@Furry7272 I do, I don't own a car. I'm saying we need more pedestrian areas and close off neighborhoods like Rittenhouse to traffic.
@@euroschmau agreed... Why not just block off streets. Encourage safe bike riding etc
That’s an awful idea. Closing off the streets around the park will create epic gridlock. You can’t close Walnut. It’s a major thoroughfare.
There’s not enough capacity on the other streets to handle the increased volume you’d create by removing streets for the volume of traffic. That’s great and all you get you dream of skipping around the street. But some of us have to get around the city. It’s not all about you. Creating gridlock isn’t a solution.
@@mjt7231...and yet far older and more complex cities like Madrid, Paris and Rome pedestrianize the majority of their downtowns. These car-free streets are packed and lively, and the thoroughfares that do have traffic aren't at a standstill. These municipalities have good planning and implement congestion taxing. Downtowns are not meant for cars, either use public transit or park your car adjacent to downtown and walk. It's not all about you.
I was nervous but props on the “Passyunk” pronunciation!
As a newbie to this city, I'm glad to know now
Thanks for a great video about my home town. As with Broadway in NYC, Passyunk Avenue is an old Indian trail which is why neither fit into a grid street layout. They existed way before the cities were born.
I love this kinda stuff! So interesting
Philly is the best city in the US. Walkable, good transit, beautiful, tree-lined narrow streets, brick streetwall facades, beautiful shady parks lined by skyscrapers, world-class food scene (seriously, there is an impossibly huge amount of incredible food in Philly, it would take a lifetime to try it all), and to top it all off, rents are reasonably affordable, and we can and do build more housing. Philly has all of the benefits of a big city without the insane cost of living like you see in cities like New York. We actually have it all here.
In my time in Philly, I was always astounded by how rare it was I had something to eat that I didn’t like + how rare it was to see food chains, compared to a place like NYC.
The food scene is beyond words.
So true, moved to here from Florida two weeks ago and I’m not even looking back!
@@sanford360it’s very nice especially in south Philly, center city
It’s okay, but it’s not the best city. Literally everybody knows that’s New York.
@@sanford360where you at friend I have recommendations
"It was almost as if I was seeing pedestrians put cars in their place" that's a really nice way to describe how we aggressively walk into the street and expect cars to deal with it
I'm glad to see Philly getting some love. I visited for the first time a few months ago and was pleasantly surprised! Loved how walkable and well-preserved the old architecture was. I stayed in a hotel in Rittenhouse and once I parked my car, I literally didn't take it out for the entire time I was there since I could walk to everywhere I wanted to go to.
A great example of a grid layout inspired by Penn's Philadelphia plan is Raleigh, NC. It has the original state capitol in the center instead of city hall, and still has the four surrounding public squares (although one is now a community college campus and one is the governor's mansion)
I like your videos but it's hard to take in so much information in a continuous stream! You might think about adding in some pauses when you change to an interesting picture or have just made a meaningful point to let people contemplate what you've just said a little bit.
Great job overall though, I love quality content like this!
I really enjoyed visiting Philadelphia when I was near the city during college. I loved its narrow streets, historic houses, and lots of culture and exciting restaurants. Rodin Museum, Schuylkill River trail, and the Philadelphia Museum are all amazing places. What I also loved is how they have a Trader Joe's and a Whole Foods all in the downtown area, making it very convenient to pick up groceries. I know Philly gets a bad rap on crime, but I felt very safe even in downtown. Kensington and South Philly give it a bad wrap, but there are seriously pretty places too. Washington Square West, Old City, Society Hill, Fitler Square, Northern Liberties, and Fishtown, are all really nice.
Not to mention Philly punches wayyy above its weight when it comes to public transit with multiple modes and so many connections. The only issue is that it’s aged and needs a lot of repair and renovation. But that’s happening slowly especially with new rolling stock orders. And septa get your stuff together
Fun fact: much of the planning for the area around city hall was designed and planned by Edmund Bacon. You only need one degree to know who his son is.
Philly has thousands of single-family houses, even in Center City. I think you meant to say that it doesn't have free-standing houses there. It's an important difference.
correct
Great video, I'm intrigued about Philly now, and would like to visit one day. I've only visited the US twice, and found all of the following cities very walkable: San Francisco, Chicago, New York and Washington DC. SF and DC were probably my favourites, I think the lower number of skyscrapers makes them feel more human-scaled. Philly will be next on the list. As soon as I saw that grid, I was reminded of Adelaide, an Australian city planned in a similar way to Philadelphia, with one large central square, and four more smaller squares, one in similar positions to those in Philadelphia. Adelaide was founded in the 1830s, and thankfully the original layout has survived pretty much intact.
those cities you mentioned are some of America’s best. try Boston and portland maine too while you’re out there on the east coast visiting philly.
Great video. I love Philly!!!
I moved to Philly a little over a year ago and all the good things people are saying are true. A couple pet peeves though are the insanely deep potholes and insanely large speed bumps. But yes especially on a less than 80 degree Fahrenheit day most walkable city I’ve walked all the way from 49th street in west Philly to Delaware river which is basically zero street
Outstanding vid. Center City living is the best. I can see to the south forever from my 19th floor condo.
You forgot to mention New York City's Borough of Manhattan. Its southern tip, currently the Financial District, was a grid of sorts, but in 1811 the great grid of Manhattan was adapted and with several changes, such as Central Park, is still in place. Of course, I understand that the cities you mentioned, were originally laid out as grids, NYC was not.
@7:48 You forgot to mention the completely rebuilt and soon to reopen Franklin Square PATCO station, which had closed 45 years ago TODAY due to low ridership. The renewed vibrance of the park, including its use for the annual Chinese lantern festival, has given the station a new purpose.
Great video, and appreciate the correct pronunciation of Passyunk! Plenty of people from the surrounding suburbs get it wrong themselves
Its nice to actully see a positive review of this great city. Soany people are wrapped up in the negatives, and they fail to see all the positives. Philly residents don't even call it Philadelphia. They refer to the neighborhood their from, I'm from Germantown, I'm from Manayunk, and so on.
This is a great video . Being from the Philly suburbs and taking forever to find my way around the city I’ve always told people to just picture a grid 🤔
All Center City. River to river, east to west is 3 miles also 30 blocks. All CC blocks are1/10 of a mile. South St. to Vine St which is South to North is early Penn design for his city. Thomas Holme was his main surveyor/designer w Penn feeding him his goal.
Amazing video, I'm from Passyunk Square area. Honestly the best neighborhood ever
Fun fact the William Penn statue atop city hall being the tallest building until liberty one was built taller in 1987 began the Philly sports curse, no team would win a championship until a William Penn statuette was affixed to the new tallest spire during the ‘08 Phillies run which broke the curse
Whoa! You showed my old apartment on Spruce St.! Weird feeling seeing it on YT
I live in Miami and its a joke. The downtown areas are just full of lifeless parking garages with zero architecture. There is no charm to the city. Its very dense in some areas yet, its very hard to walk without fearing for your life because the city refuses to make it pedestrian friendly. Just go on street view and see for yourself
Great video of my favorite PA city!
As a Philadelphian, thanks.
We have the best city and should appreciate it way more
As a philly native whos moved around, i find myself constantly longing for a city more like philly
Love it!
As a Philadelphia we do put the cars in their place. Philly drivers are insane but you know what Philadelphia and is crossing the street when they make immediate intense eye contact with the driver.
Awesome video! My home! have to call out 7:47 which isn't Franklin Square tho
I live in LA now I want to move to Philly
As far as walkability goes, Philadelphia is light-years ahead of LA. Just remember to do your research about everything else! :)
me too!
I tried LA over 20 years ago. I remember driving with some folks when we missed an exit. Because of the traffic, it literally took us 1 hour just to turn around.
I moved to Philly in '04 and have never owned a car. With the money I saved, I bought a house.
Excellent job. I do love that we broke the grid with the Benjamin Franklin Parkway. We do need more park and less way.
Center city is a lovely place to walk around. When my mom used to work at the old municipal building I would go down to visit her, but I would go down also to walk around. Penn's landing is a nice place to stroll. Also there are other parts of philly outside of center city to walk. It might not seem like it because these are considered "bad" neighborhoods, but you can still see the old city planning going on. I used to live in Nicetown, and there are still little plazas that were created to just sit and gather. We even had a whole street converted to a walkway where no cars can drive on. There are plenty of places in philly to walk around outside of center city imo
Great video! I like Philadelphia's grid. Yes, Savannah has a great grid. I live in metro Atlanta. Downtown Atlanta has a great grid, but the city grew in all directions and doesn't have a continuous grid.
4:23 Just a nitpick, most housing is actually single family housing, our city is made up of rowhomes which generally are single family lives in that house, some bigger ones are converted to apts, but most really are still single family;
It's interesting to hear Philly described as a peninsula. I guess in some sense it is. I don't think it's ever locally thought of that way.
I feel as though this video is too focused on the grid system itself. The overwhelming majority of cities in the United States are grid based. I think what separates Philly from other cities is the density within that grid system.
I believe New Haven, Connecticut was the first city grid system. It was by no means as massive as Philly/New York is, but forgetting about New Haven is a bit of a loss to the video. The New Haven “nine square plan” was created in 1638.
Really interesting video, I relaly enjoyed it, just curious about what was mentioned about "the new worlds' first city-wide street grid" when Spanish colonial cities using a grid already existed, por example Lima, Perú established in 1535, Mexico City in 1521 or Antigua Guatemala in 1543, to give some examples. 😄
The main reason for Penn to give the city a grid was fire safety. He had seen the devastation of the great fire of London that destroyed most of the city in a few days. The small alleys and lanes packed with wooden buildings provided constant fuel for the flames to feed on.
Penn’s grid was divided into four districts by 2 wide avenues. Broad Street running north & South and High (Market) Street going east to west. Each quadrant had an 8 acre open field or public square and a 10 acre square in the center. These avenues and squares provided fire breaks. He also outlawed wooden buildings. Only brick & stone could be used in building.
I am proud to be a Philadelphian. Not as big and important as New York, nor as clean and orderly as Boston and Washington ... Philly is still far more affordable to live in and has the amenities of a world class city. I live in University City which has gorgeous large Victorian homes, shady streets, very safe, lots of cafes and restaurants.
All of the streets cutting though the grid are on the original Indian trails. And the street layout of Fishtown is the result of the city grid expanding north imposed onto the original grid parallel to the Delaware. To this day some of the street numbers start at Front St (east) and some start on Delaware Ave going west. Good video.
I was searching the comments to see if anyone pointed out the origin of the streets that cut through the grid pattern. The obvious examples that start to the north of Vine Street are Ridge Ave. and Germantown Ave. and of course these two streets continue for many miles into the suburbs. The really cool thing is that these streets not only were Indian (native American) trails, but most likely were originally created the animal population and just adopted by the Indians, so pretty amazing to think we are still using paths that most likely pre-date human population in the area!
The same is true for Broadway in Manhattan.
@@southpond Many converged at the Delaware river, but the paths have been redeveloped. The traces of Woodland Ave can be still seen on Penn's campus.
We definitely don’t call it the William peninsula 😂…. But I may be now!
Two hidden walkable gems in America that are cheaper than NY City, Philly, or Boston: Richmond Virginia and Savannah Georgia. I’ve had the pleasure to live in both. You can get a bagel and coffee for $6, a beer for $3, and you can walk from one side to the other without having to cross any 8 lane roads.
Savannah actually has nice architecture too throughout the city. It’s Americana distinctly, but like Europe, in a beautiful way.
Richmond is indeed a gem of a city that reminds me somewhat of Philadelphia, although much smaller, of course. It has a grid street pattern with many old row house/town house neighborhoods. Richmond also has great architecture, museums, parks, etc. And the lower cost of living in Richmond is attracting many from the DC area in the same way that Philly attracts people from NYC.
the say the grid is the reason for the walkability, but you describe a lot of reasons that increase walkability that have nothing to do with the grid. for example the narrow streets and dense development can exist alongside or in the absence of a grid street layout.
boston doesn't have a grid but accomplishes many of the same things. many western cities have grids and fail on walkability.
To be fair. South Philadelphia wasn’t incorporated into Philadelphia until the late 1800s. All the surrounding neighborhoods that isn’t downtown area were their own townships. Until they made Philadelphia county into one big city.
You don’t have to travel across the river to see single family houses tho you just stayed downtown and them areas around it venture out mt airy northeast germantown
Def is most walkable. Ive lived all over Philly. Walked all over.
Best place i feel it Italian market, beela Vista head house square area.
South. Beach is def. Very walkable but its like a micro city.
You can walk river to river in Philly in 30... 35 minutes
You can walk from center city to stadiums in south Philly under hour. Cant do that in south beach.
Great video!
Fa real me and my friends used to walk home from school sometimes like four miles those were the days
Moved to center city and sold my car. Here to stay for a couple of years 🇺🇸🔔
The "peninsula" you describe is just called Philly. The area west of the Schuylkill (pronounced "Skookle" btw, not gonna fault you for that since you got Passyunk right lol) is University City because the Drexel and UPenn campuses are there, and farther out is West Philly.
Fun fact about the beloved City Hall: Until the 1980s there was an unofficial "ordinance" that no building was allowed to be built taller than the William Penn statue. After the 1987 construction of One Liberty Place, the first building to break this rule, Philadelphia's sports teams, which had been quite successful across the board through the 70s and early 80s, were mired in mediocrity and heartbreak. This coincidence was dubbed the "Curse of Billy Penn," and persisted until the Phillies finally won the World Series in 2008, finally breaking a quarter century of championship drought in Philly sports.
People hate it, but I love my city ❤️
1:56 - High Street of the original plan is now known as Market Street.
Please consider doing a video on savannah georgias squares
You talked about how narrow the streets were and chose some wider streets. A lot of south Philly streets are really tiny. It just means that it's even better!
I think the locals call it Logan Circle.
Yes or Logan square
Which kinda makes no sense
Nice history of Philadelphia grid, grid style is the best way to build a city.
Center city is expanding across the Schuylkill River into west Philly.
I stopped in Philly and got a cheese steak from that place lol
"Center City" is what we call that downtown peninsula.
When he said "peninsula", he was including a much larger area than just Center City
Nobody in Philly calls the area between the Schuylkill and the Delware rivers , Arch and South st "The Pennisula." Save that for San Fran. It's just center city.
He was including a much larger area than just Center City when he said "peninsula"
The Philly metro, the tri-state area, “the city”…. Then neighborhoods. Big city if neighborhoods. Directional names like South Philly.
Also, by counties & town-names in the burbs.
I wad there last week. I need it now i yearn for it
This makes me appreciate my city even more I’m staying here lol
Love seeing my city that I love getting props on one of my fav YT channels.
But anyone planning to move here: it’s terrible, hellscape, would not recommend 😉
People in my life and I have always referred the peninsula as just “The schuylkill” and we don’t call downtown “downtown” we call it Center City
That explains SEPTA regional rail tunnel
🇺🇸 7:58 at the lower-left is Independence Hall
Currently staring at the Philly skyline as I’m watching this video
lucky :)
How did you project the video onto the skyline?
The city becomes less walkable as you move outside of center city and south Philly. There are other walkable neighborhoods but those are mostly segregated from each other and require some type of transportation to get between them. Other than walking to and from center city and south Philly. There’s not really any other neighborhoods you can easily walk to and from. The great NE is basically the suburbs. The city is much bigger than the grid in this video.
To get to Northern Liberties from center city or old city is a bit of a hike. West Philly you have a bit of a hike to get past the river and the industry and 30th street station along the river. Fairmount to center city isn’t bad. You can walk around Manayunk but you need to get there. South Philly is easily the best walking neighborhood in the city.
But I lived for years in Philly without a car. And it really doesn’t limit you at all. Having a car does help though.
Fishtown and Northern liberties is walkable but only between those two neighborhoods.
North Philly should be walkable but we all know why it’s not in some places. If you don’t know. There’s no reason to find out.
Have lived in several different neighborhoods. Whichever one you are in. You don’t really venture past the next one over. If you do. You’re not walking. I’m not walking from south Philly to Fishtown or west Philly. Nobody is walking to Manayunk.
I mean... I think when we consider "walkability" we're not talking about it in that way. The relative walkability of each of those areas you mention is pretty consistent. Obviously you wouldn't want to walk from say, 52nd St to Front St. But pair the walkability of both of those areas with accessible public transit and it makes it very easy to live most places in the city without a car. It's also very much possible to make that walk, even if you wouldn't necessarily want to. In many cities around the US walking that distance wouldn't even be possible because there would be a massive freeway blocking the way.
Rox/Myk is a long walk to CC. You're forgetting the Schuylkill River Trail where people bike, run, or walk. People do it all the time.
the french quarter in New Orleans!
Not to be that one, but Philadelphia mainly uses Belgium blocks, and not cobble stone. But thanks for calling out my city you are awesome!!!
A grid makes it easy to allocate land ownership and promotes legibility. The downside is it’s boring and makes for high rates of car crashes since cross junctions are where most collisions occur, even with traffic lights.
However as was pointed out in the video, since this is a very tight grid pattern and the streets are, for the most part quite narrow (and even more so now that lanes have been eliminated to provide bike lanes), the average speed of a car is usually quite slow, reducing the likelihood of severe crashes. Of course there are always tragic exceptions as in the terrible crash recently at 18th and Spruce streets that killed a cyclist traveling the bike lane - but the driver was very drunk and that was the cause of the severity of the crash, not the grid pattern.
@@southpond I was not commenting on the specific area but a more general point about grid layouts and traffic accidents. Cross junctions are the most dangerous part of any road network. The US has a lot and therefore compared with many European countries has a high rate of road fatalities. The UK has been designing out cross junctions for decades. It has 67 million people on a land area the size of Ohio. It had 3.2 deaths on the road per 100,000 in 2023, compared with 12.7 in the US.
The Schuylkill river isn’t wide enough to make Philly a peninsula.
I moved to Philly last year, and now I'm considering getting rid of my car. The only thing I wish is for the city to make the subway lines cleaner and safer. Additionally, I wish other areas I wished were easier to cross are the roads near the museum area and Callowhill street. Lastly, I would like more and bigger green spaces, which the city is finally making some plans for it.
We DO NOT call it "downtown" we refer to it as, "Center Ciry"