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Cities & Urban Planning: fun facts and quiz
The essentials in 7 ideas, with fun facts, an illustrated story and a quiz to see how much you know.
The essentials
Grid Cities
Many cities are laid out in grids of straight streets. Manhattan’s 1811 plan created its famous grid, and ancient cities like Mohenjo-daro used grids too.
Key fact
Barcelona’s Eixample district has blocks with cut-off corners.
Public Transport
Buses, trams and metros move lots of people using little space. A single bus can take dozens of cars off the road.
Key fact
A single tram can carry around 200 people.
Parks & Green Space
Parks cool cities, clean the air and help people relax. New York’s Central Park, opened in 1858, was designed as a green escape from the city.
Key fact
Trees can lower street temperatures by several degrees.
Cities on Water
Venice is built on 118 small islands, linked by over 400 bridges. Amsterdam, too, grew up around a web of canals.
Key fact
Venice’s buildings stand on millions of wooden piles.
The 15-Minute City
The 15-minute city idea says daily needs, like shops, schools and parks, should be a short walk or bike ride from home. Paris has championed it.
Key fact
Shorter trips mean less traffic and pollution.
Urban Sprawl
When cities spread outwards with low-density housing, people often depend on cars and travel further. Planners try to balance growth with compact neighbourhoods.
Key fact
Denser neighbourhoods make public transport easier to run.
Smart Cities
Smart cities use sensors and data to run traffic lights, bins and street lighting more efficiently. Singapore is often held up as a leader.
Key fact
Some streetlights dim automatically when nobody is around.
Fun facts
Twice a year, the setting Sun lines up with Manhattan’s cross streets, an event nicknamed Manhattanhenge.
The first public bus service is often credited to Blaise Pascal: horse-drawn coaches in Paris, in 1662.
Central Park’s lakes, hills and meadows were shaped by hand, moving millions of cartloads of earth and rock.
About a quarter of the Netherlands lies below sea level, kept dry by dykes and pumps.
The 15-minute city idea was popularised by Paris-based professor Carlos Moreno in 2016.
Atlanta and Barcelona have similar populations, but Atlanta’s built-up area covers over 20 times as much land.
Songdo, in South Korea, was built from scratch as a smart city, with rubbish sucked away through underground pipes.
Story: The Park Contest
The Park Contest
1857. New York holds a contest to design a huge park in the middle of Manhattan. Of 33 entries, the winner comes from an unlikely pair.
Frederick Law Olmsted was a farmer and journalist; Calvert Vaux, an English architect. Their plan sank the cross-town roads into cuttings, out of sight.
Olmsted wanted a park for everyone, rich and poor. Central Park became the model for city parks across America.
True or false?
Tap your answer to see if you got it, and why.
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Question 1 of 10
Manhattan’s street grid dates from an 1811 plan.
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True. Laid out long before most of it was built.
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Question 2 of 10
One bus can replace many cars.
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True. Dozens of car trips in one vehicle.
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Question 3 of 10
Trees can cool city streets.
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True. Shade and evaporation cool the air.
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Question 4 of 10
Venice stands on wooden piles.
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True. Millions of them, driven into the mud.
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Question 5 of 10
The 15-minute city puts daily needs within a short walk or ride.
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True. Everything close to home.
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Question 6 of 10
Sprawl often increases car dependence.
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True. Things end up too far apart to walk.
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Question 7 of 10
Smart cities use sensors to manage services.
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True. Like traffic flow and lighting.
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Question 8 of 10
Grid cities were invented in the 21st century.
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False. Some are over 4,000 years old.
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Question 9 of 10
Public transport uses more road space per person than cars.
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False. It uses far less.
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Question 10 of 10
Central Park is a natural forest that was never designed.
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False. It was carefully planned and landscaped.
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KnowSoda learns what you know and brings back what you’re about to forget. Cities & Urban Planning has 6 more ideas at the Advanced and Expert levels.
Sources
- Museum of the City of New York — The Greatest Grid (1811 plan)
- Central Park Conservancy — Park history
- C40 Cities — The 15-minute city
- UNESCO World Heritage Centre — Venice and its lagoon
- Encyclopaedia Britannica — Eixample, urban sprawl, Songdo
- Falchi et al. (2016), the new world atlas of artificial night sky brightness, Science Advances 2
- UN-Habitat — Informal settlements
