Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book reviews the history of regular grid planning in the world from the Indus Valley Civilization of Ancient India to colonization of the New World. It also reviews the literature about regular grid planning in settlements with an emphasis on why. The book begins with an analysis of 20 contemporary American urban grids controlled for size to establish a quantitative baseline about their metric and spatial characteristics using space syntax. It examines the basic concepts of formal composition, meaning how the plan of the urban object is composed of geometrical elements, in the American town planning tradition. The book analyzes spatial structure in historical and contemporary American settlements in terms of their emergent pattern. It also examines the formal composition and spatial configuration of few basic plan concepts that appear to lay at the heart of the American planning tradition.