ABSTRACT
The supergrid network of wide cross-city arterial roads forms a series of superblock cells, each containing a network of narrower streets and a set of street blocks at a local scale. The supergrid and superblocks are interdependent and mutually supportive parts of a single urban system. Cities in China and Japan have been flourishing for more than a millennium and designed within strong cultural predispositions that are largely different from the West's. The two countries share many aspects of culture, and they have the experience of urban development that is based on a clearly classical and ideal planning paradigm that has also influenced city form in other East Asian countries – the supergrid and superblock structure. Superblocks in China tend to fragment cities because of the disconnections between street networks within them and the citywide arterial road networks or supergrids. The investigation of Japanese superblocks provides inspiration and guidance for the improvement of Chinese superblock structures.
