Downtown Nenova

Many Midwestern cities were planned at an interesting transitional point in American urban history. Along the East Coast, planned areas such as Manhattan, Back Bay (Boston), and Newport News included standardized rectangular grid patterns, Philadelphia including a large square grid pattern that was broken down over time, while Savannah and Washington developed under the Oglethorpe Plan and the L'Enfant Plan respectively. Many cities were planned as a sort of greenfield project with few constraints on development, but most (especially in the North) worked around older city centers. Some areas given over to especially rapid development, such as Brooklyn, allowed individual property owners to develop their own grids, which resulted in a rather unique discordant layout of grids crashing into each other, sometimes at sharp angles.

West of the Mississippi, and specifically west of the Missouri, many of these characteristics give way to cities dominated by railroads and the Plot Land Survery System (PLSS), as well as new ideas of what a neighborhood is and should be. Often, the grid at the city center is "tilted" to align with a river, as in Des Moines, Kansas City, Denver, and Topeka, sometimes it is tilted to align with a railway, as in Fresno, Cheyenne, and Idaho Falls, and just as often it is not, as in Omaha, Wichita, and Salt Lake City. This means that from a downtown perspective, these cities are often distinct. Often, industrial areas, whether yards, manufacturing, or both will dominate the city center (ex. Emporia, North Platte). In major cities, interchanges often invite malls and large retail areas, sometimes including office parks (ex. Boise, Spokane) However, they are unified by their use of the PLSS (best examples being Pheonix, Boise, and Omaha), by their orthogonalized North-South orientation outside of the city center, and by their use of a hierarchical road system (living, collector, arterial). Some unique examples that deviate from this include Redding, California and Las Cruses, New Mexico.

Defining my recent efforts in developing the downtown of my Western-styled city Nenova in these terms, I have a river-aligned city with some unique grid variations in the city center. The city is relatively small, with a metro area not breaking 300,000 people, and so the downtown is limited in size, especially because larger retail areas will be present outside of the downtown and even outside of the city limits.There is ample space between the riparian railway for a park, and a dam is present to provide hydroelectric power to the neighborhood. Here's a zoomed-out screenshot:

Within the downtown area is present many different kinds of landuse and zoning. The majority of the area is likely zoned as commercial, medium-density, while some medium and low density housing is also present. There is also lots of public space, with five museums present as well as two blocks dedicated to a library and the town hall. There are several open lots, and many parking spaces available, given that a city in this style is likely to be dominated by cars, regardless of the existence of a simple public transport option. Many statues and public arts works are present along the sidewalks, the most prominent example being the monumental town hall park. There are places for assisted and senior living, as well as a YMCA-esque fitness institution. A major rugby stadium is present, though it is also up to gridiron standards. There are fire, police, and volunteer ambulance services in the downtown, as well as a courthouse and a county administrative annex. Many of the shops are aligned towards main street, although the town hall is also a focal point of the downtown.

Service roads, present here as they are in many similar downtowns, provide access for parking or for trucks that need access to the shops facing the street. In general, the street importance is shown by the color and thickness of the street. Primary streets are orange and wide, secondary streets are yellow and wide, tertiary streets are white and wide, residential streets (not necessarily living streets) and white and medium-wide, service roads are white and medium-thin, and parking aisles are white and thin. Sidewalks are red dashed lines while cycleways and blue dashed lines. Can you find the main cycling route? 

Other interesting features include an arcade, a jazz cafe, an old paper mill, and a demolished road converted into a sidewalk. Also interesting are the three blocks of mixed-zoning semi-residential, semi-commercial development. There are no greenfield projects to speak of.

As I continue the development of this city, I will provide updates regarding each neighborhood.