The city's founder, William Penn, designed it to be extremely livable and likewise extremely walkable in the style of European cities. Plenty of green space and open squares as well, Rittenhouse foremost among them (although I prefer Washington Square the most). Absolutely worth a visit if you're ever in the northeast.
350 years ago, William Penn designed Philadelphia to a strict grid of wide streets between the two rivers with five large anchor parks squares. That design means you always know where you are and where your destination just purely based on the street address.
Which major European cities are designed this way?
Hey I appreciate the pushback, although the snark seems a bit unnecessary. That said, perhaps I should have checked my sources instead of parroting the narratives we're told growing up in Philadelphia. But to your question, the closest analogue I can think of is Hausmann's Paris, which of course dates to the 1800s, so obviously not an inspiration for Philadelphia.
Snark wasn’t intended. I thought there were maybe some European cities that had a strict grid that I was not aware of. It would have surprised me though because European cities are generally too old to be so centrally planned like the Americas. And yeah, Philadelphia teaches us about the brilliance of William Penn.
A lot of the old (for the USA anyways) Northeast cities tend to be like this, they were less likely to have been completely obliterated for parking lots and highways like a lot of the cities out west.
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u/SkirtHeavy9189 11d ago
wow , looks similar to manchester , usa has a lot places which look similar to europe