Why City Streets Don’t Run Perfectly North-South
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- Опубликовано: 23 сен 2024
- There are cities around the world where streets aren’t quite in alignment. | Go to squarespace.co... to get a free trial and 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.
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Unknown Melbourne is a series exploring the weird and wonderful parts of the city.
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Read More and References:
Data visualisation on city grids by Geoff Boeing - geoffboeing.co...
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Your editing an animations are getting SO much better. And this was a really interesting video topic as well. Nice work!
Thanks mate! High praise from you. Got good vibes about the channel at the moment. More cool stuff in the works! 🟠
both you and julian create a personal tone in your videos by filming the footage your self and i personally love it!
You are why I'm here. Because apparently I needed to do more study on city planning. Who knew
Very smooth!
Love your videos
I love the fact that the grid doesn't match the current magnetic north but it did match the historical magnetic north. It's something I would have never thought of myself, which makes it much more satisfying to here you explain!
I find even wierder that an arbitrary compass point would make humans want to build aligned with it
I love the fact you're getting more and more views, I grew up and still call myself a Melbournian though due to work I have had to opportunity to travel the world, haven't been back for 3 years now, covid and all but these videos have made me love and miss home even more. Can't wait to come back home and see the plant statues in St Kilda and the trees you can email and even the air duct's in Fed square. Keep up the great work Julian your research is second to none & you should do meet up sometime for your followers, love to pic your brain at a pub sometime. Good stuff all round.
Thanks, mate.
I personally believe American suburban planners went to an Italian restaurant for dinner, had lots of spaghetti, and jokingly said "Imagine if we designed these places like our food!"...and then did it anyway because they couldn't think of anything else
the Ocean down "South" New Jersey Avenue" or "Head North on Atlantic Ave and make a left onto North Pennsylvania Ave."
Looks nice
I've never once thought about North-South alignment for cities as being that important. Maximized alignment with the average direction of a river makes much more sense.
You should come to Dunedin, New Zealand one day. We have a partial grid layout but the designers ignored (or didn’t know about) the local topography. The result is total chaos once they realised the hills and gorges make a grid impossible.
Christchurch, the perfect true north grid!
Really interesting - thanks! As you started, I did wonder if you were going to mention Montreal - did some work there, and finding exits of buildings labelled as "North", when it was Montreal North really had me confused at first!
Cheers, Tom! I haven’t been - but keen to see it for myself.
0:18 that visualization of statistics is a true piece of art!
That was a fascinating video; the magnetic direction was something I didn't expect.
You should check out Ladd's Addition in Portland, Oregon - a tilted section in the city grid, except this one was done just for the heck of it.
Great recommendation - I’m headed to the US and if I get to Portland, will check it.
Just love that we have our own YT star who clearly loves what he does and we can all see the evolution of his craft too. These videos just keep getting better and the quality is top shelf. Thank you for your content!
As someone who just moved into Melbourne, you're videos are super informative!
Thanks, mate
Welcome to an awesome city!
*your
Great info about the city I thought I knew everything about. Very well explained and visualised. Thanks mate keep it up
Thanks, Luke - Glad you liked it!
As a Melburnian currently in Toronto and visiting Montreal this weekend your timing is spectacular. Great video!!
I've been wondering about this for years. Thanks for doing the hard work and making the video!
Thanks, Ethan - Glad to help!
Been in Melbourne my whole life but am always fascinated by your videos. Legend mate, keep it up!
Great video as always, Julian. Love this city! One thing I remember being told at school was that the reason Melbourne's tram network survived largely intact into the modern era is due to our unusually wide streets. Is there any particular reason Melbourne's streets were built so wide?
My understanding is that it was a design decision about the importance of open space for the health and wellbeing of people in the city. (Hoddle wanted it - the Governor was less keen.)
@@JulianOShea I know that the streets are wide in Dandenong is because Dandenong used to be a Cattle trading town, and the wide streets were needed to transport the cattle.
it might have been for more easy animal drawn cart u-turns
The tram network survived because Melbournians would have lynched any government or officials that tried to take their trams away! In the 60s when every other city was ripping up tracks for their trams or interurbans, and converting to buses, Melbourne said No Thank You! We will stick with our trams. Nowadays, you find cities around the world that ripped out their trams are having to spend Billions to reinstall a pared down system and re-educate pedestrians and drivers to be aware of trams.
Mark from Melbourne Australia
Read somewhere (and I believe there's a video about it too) that Melbourne's trams were also relatively newer compared to other cities where their tram networks were falling into disrepair, and to add to that, Melbourne's tram tracks were concreted so it would be much more expensive to remove them.
Bloody good video mate. Can see you’ve also put a lot of work in to the edit too. Great job!
Thanks, Michael! Production values are on the rise…
Fun fact: In Singapore our streets are designed in such a way that during morning and evenings the sun doesnt blind drivers
That's really smart as driving in to Melbourne on the monash during sunrise, even though you are going in the opposite direction to the sunrise the reflection off the tower blocks in the city is appalling.
Bloody marvellous. Right in my wheelhouse. Going to enjoy your video on the mile-spaced surveyor grid when that comes out 😎
I passed a sign in London once saying "Westminster Bridge closed Eastbound"
Never heard a taxi driver saying "Not going east of river this time of the night"
All bridges run North/South
Thanks for mentioning Charlotte! Traffic here is challenging at times.
Very informative and fun video. Keep up the good work.
Awesome video! Didn't know we had a waterfall on the Yarra. Would love to hear more about indigenous history, landmarks and geography in Melbourne too ~
OMG! I draw floor plans for a living in Melbourne and are forever checking the orientation building. I have always wondered this! Thanks 🙏
Answered!
The Kansas City metro area straddles the border between Kansas and Missouri. The street grid is nominally north-south, but the streets are not exactly parallel on the two sides. This is due to the Kansas side and the Missouri side being surveyed starting from different principal meridians.
I’m headed to Kansas soon - could be a video to be made there…
@@JulianOShea As someone who's lived in both Kansas City and Melbourne I'd appreciate this. I definitely prefer Melbourne though!
I grew up in rural Indiana and Michigan. County roads often have a dog leg bend in them where they meet at the county lines for the same reason.
I love learning new things about my home city. Thanks Julian!
Love your channel, as a Melbourne resident of 14 years it's great to finally understand the reason for the 8° grid, it always bemused me!
Keep it up ☘️
Bravo - loved this. As a Sydneysider, I lived in Melbourne for 3 years in the early 2000s and wondered about this issue exactly!
Thanks Julian!👍 Always love watching your videos! They are always so well researched and presented in a fun and informative way. Cheers!
Thanks so much, Lee!
Barcelona was actually orientated to maximize sunlight. They're at perfect 45° so that every side of every block gets equal amount of sunlight. How it aligns with the coast is coincidental, as the core of the 45° grid (the Eixample) is really in between Old Barcelona and the nearby villages that merge with it. It's a real foresight into the human side of urban design by the designer Ildefons Cerda.
It's probably the best designed city in the world
Love this! Always a treat to learn more about my home city
Cheers, Ryan!
Really love how you missed out one of the most accurately linear cities in the world, i.e. Adelaide. Typical Melbournian
I love Melbourne's streets and their alignment. Keep making great vids!
Side note, there’s some gorgeous autumn foliage there.
I must say it’s definitely really interesting going to Melbourne on a holiday and stumbling into the topics of some of your videos.
The quality of your videos are tip top, like the editing, effects, audio, and the subjects you choose, I always learn something. Just added the channel to my notifications 🔔
I live in the San Gabriel Valley, just east of Los Angeles, and the mountains to the north run more or less exactly east-west, so our roads run pretty much exactly along the cardinal directions.
Great vid Julian. Nice to see a local fella making a great vid of our hometown. 👍😁🇦🇺
Thanks, Mark 👍
Great videos! You keep topics interesting and filled with information. I would have never cared about all this otherwise!
I'm in Melbourne city now heading north, err west err south, ok east. love the channel mate.
Julian: Why don't you run perfectly north-south?
City streets: Why not?
Julian: Understandable, have a nice day
Fancy seeing our glorious capital of Pyongyang make the list at 0:21. Pyongyang is a perfectly designed city, the fact the city went from complete ruins due to the war to a stunning showcase city to be proud of thanks to my grandpa shows the might of the Juche spirit. And I am continuing his legacy with more development.
Missiles ended all in the ocean too?
Thanks for uploading with the captions ready! Super appreciate that!
A cute thing as a a consequence of parallel and perpendicular streets to the coast in Barcelona: the buses have a letter before the number V for the vertical busses on streets, H for the ones on horizontal streets and the D for the ones on the rare diagonal streets.
Thank you, great info about my city. Keep it coming!
Another fascinating video. Thanks Julian
I think if you did a series on all Australian cities it might be more beneficial for your channel. I am a qlder though and don’t plan on going to Melb anytime soon but your videos so much!
This just made me look closer at a map of Manchester UK where I have been confused by the street layout in the past.
the roads run perfectly parallel along the canals in the centre until they meet a train station, then they run parallel to either the nearest trainline or nearest river/canal.
very cool and makes a lot of sense considering the industrial past to the city. thanks for the video ^^
Britain has a lot of roads that align with the old Roman roads, which to me is more fascinating.
Your videos are always so interesting! Thank you!
Glasgow, Scotland, is a wonderful example of this with it's 18th century gridded city centre offset to its 12th century cathedral
Man, honestly, I don't know how you do it but you make some of the most interesting videos I have ever seen, well done
Kind words! Glad you’re enjoying them. 🚀
Philadelphia is another city where the main grid is just a little bit slanted, and it's because of the Delaware River. Up here in Bucks County you have a phenomenon of many north-south roads running almost due east-west, most prominently a good chunk of Route 1, because they're following the fall line of the Atlantic costal plane.
Always assumed that outside the Hoddle grid, Melbourne's streets were exactly north-south. Thanks for pointing out that they aren't, and the reason why. Cheers!
Great Video. Never even thought to question that our streets follow cardinal directions! Really interesting watch, I’ve learned something new. Thanks Julian.
Thanks Julian. Fantastic video!
Love your work Julian! Another great video! 😀
Again, you've reached into my brain and confirmed my long-held suspicions that Melbourne's grid is based on magnetic North, but I never bothered to research myself. And I love that you did most of your narration in front of where I got married at St Michael's. Keep up the fantastic work, Mate
(when heading to AC, you go East), so it would make a lot of sense to name the streets parallel to the Ocean North-South, and those running to/from the Ocean East-West. Bu
Julian you are brilliant and entertaining. A rare intersection. You are my true north for strange facts about cities.
Thanks, Peter! Appreciate the kind words. More cool city stuff in the works.
Fascinating and well presented as always!
Glad you enjoyed it!
Another thing to note about magnetic north grid layouts. Further subdivisions of land would not reestablish magnetic north using a compass. But would adopted the azimuth of adjoining subdivisions. On survey plans the azimuth would be denoted M.M. (magnetic meridian) with a plan number after it to denote which plan's azimuth it was adopting. This is why subdivisions done in the 1960's on M.M. still match with the older subdivisions.
Kitchener in Ontario is similar to Montreal where the sun rises in the south and sets in the north
Absolutely fascinating and so well researched as usual!
Great vid as always Julian. Spent the whole video spotting the filming locations. A missed opportunity to film on the corner of Bourke and Collins Streets.
Great vid!!
Fascination ++..
Well done.
Another pearl Thanks Julian.
This made me think of Beijing and the "heavenly alignment" of streets I read about in guidebooks whilst travelling there
That's interesting. I remember looking through the Melway (Melbourne street directory) and wondered why our main roads weren't running exactly north-south or east-west. I didn't even think of magnetic north.
That's why topographic/navigational maps always have the magnetic variations value and publish date in the marginal information.
Brilliant! Very well explained, fun thing to know.
Yo, this is cool. I’m learning stuff that is unusual but super cool.
The benefit of being parallel to the river (apart from the views) is that the bridges across will align with the streets
Love your videos. Lots of great info!
Awesome work. Love it!
Very enjoyable video, thanks!
What a crazy ending. Wondered this since I was a kid, at some point seems I just accepted how it was an forgot. I'm so glad I found your channel a bit ago , the only history teacher i need :P
Awesome video Julian cheers..
Really enjoy the quirky facts and answers to questions I didn't even know to ask!
Would love to know answers to more questions I never though about asking - city loop, terraces, obscure planning rules, state library and parliament house, our electrical system etc.
I know you will delight me regardless, so keep up the good work.
Thanks Julian! Your videos are so bloody cool, and you talk about stuff that everyone kind of thinks about, but just accepts. Thank you 😊
Great as always! Thank you!
Love these Julian, keep it up!!!
This was SUPER cool. I'm gonna visit the original boulders next time I'm in the city :D
Fabulous work!
Julian... great vid... thought you'd find Atlantic City NJ a good example of "what were they thinking". The City has a nice grid pattern with main streets paralleling the coastline. Unfortunately, the coastline is at a roughly 45 degree angle to North. So, you might say that naming either direction "north" is okay. However, the Atlantic Ocean is to the East (when heading to AC, you go East), so it would make a lot of sense to name the streets parallel to the Ocean North-South, and those running to/from the Ocean East-West. But, as you might guess, the opposite was done. The City was incorporated in 1854.
To this day, that contradiction in directions makes for endless confusion "Sure, go East toward the Ocean down "South" New Jersey Avenue" -or- "Head North on Atlantic Ave and make a left onto North Pennsylvania Ave."
nice. As far as I'm aware, the grid in Christchurch, NZ, is true north-south, which makes diections easy
This REALLY makes me wonder about Toowoombas East Street and South Street which often don't run even close to E/W and N/S. I thought someone was just trolling everyone or just got the map mixed up when they made the place but now I'm realising it probably has an actual explanation.
Yet another fascinating video!
I was about to jump in to say magnetic north wanders and then there you go and wrap the video up with that exact information :D
I remeber doing navigation with the military that there was an annual magnetic deviation listed on each map, and we had to calculate that for the number of years since the map was printed before setting a compass bearing.
0:55 in and I’m so excited!
And now finished. I knew about the Hoddle Grid and it running parallel with the Yarra. I didn’t know about the waterfall nor that the suburban grid is 8 degrees off true north and everything else behind that story. Thanks! I was excited because it’s a topic I like AND I knew you’d teach me something new.
I always wanted to know this. Thanks Julian. 😎👍🏼👏🏻👏🏻
When you mentioned Montreal North, I immediately thought of magnetic north since it would have been practically north-west of Montreal relative to true north back in the 1700s.
Great video Julian! The music and animation was perfect along with everything else in this one, good to see you're improvements
Some proper sleuthing in this video. Loved it!
Be grateful you have grid system to follow melbournian here in Sydney nothing is strait .
Thank you so much for pointing out magnetic variation. I was sitting here watching your video looking at your orienteering compass, shouting at the screen: "Magnetic variation!" Why did I doubt you? hehehe. Thanks again for another amazing video about Melbourne.
In Brighton Le Sans In Sydney there is The Grand Parade that runs almost straight for about 5km along Botany Bay and all of the streets run parallel to The Grand Parade.
My hometown of Peoria, Illinois, USA also has a downtown grid that is quite significantly tilted because it was laid out to be parallel with the river it fronts. However, instead of simply assigning North/East/South/West to streets that did not follow those directions, the city uses Southwest/Northeast for its main thoroughfares. For example, downtown there is Southwest Adams Street, Northeast Jefferson Street, and so on. After all, who says we have to stick to the four main directions when we name our streets? :)
Interesting and informative. Nice vid.
I'm so happy Julian makes these fascinating videos about my home city :)
hey julian, these videos are top notch and so enjoyable thank you for sharing them!
Really enjoyed the video, what a fascinating topic, I’m never gonna look at a street the same way