The layout of cities in Europe were clustered and not symmetrical; William Penn wanted the city of Philadelphia to have order and spaciousness, which no other city at that time had. Penn wanted the cities ' design to be different after visiting numerous European cities including, London, Amsterdam, Paris, and Hamburg, and seeing the poverty and disease that had run rampant. He was influenced greatly by both the Bubonic plague and the Great Fire of 1666 for the rectilinear layout of the city, as the fire and disease spread quickly due to poor planning of the city. Penn and Thomas Holme were the first to design a city layout in that way and their ideas were then made the model for cities that followed in America.

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