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X-Ray Your City's Street Network, With a Bit of Code
A new open-source tool lets users compare the structure of cities around the world.
A city’s street network is like its skeleton—a foundation for features like pipes, electrical lines, buildings, and public spaces. The angles at which pathways intersect, the shapes they wrap around, and how wide or narrow they are convey how the city has evolved, and whether it’s designed to bring people together or fling communities apart. In that way, each city’s very identity lies in its streets.
The centrality of street networks to urban life was the subject of the 1993 book Great Streets by urbanist Allan Jacobs. In it, Jacobs includes maps, drawn in a style made famous by Italian architect Giambattista Nolli, to help illustrate the differences between good and bad urban matrices.