In the documentary “The ten Town That Changed America” Geoffrey Baer illustrates the evolution of ten popular cities of the 21st century America. Done in chronological order, the documentary explores how these US cities were developed by visionary citizens who combined, urban planning, design, and architecture to change the way people lived. According to the documentary, these planners had passion and great insights for urban development, although driven by different inspirations and motivations. But one thing was central to these people: to build an environment that would change the way people live in America.
Top of the list is St. Augustine, which happens to be the oldest colonial town in the United States, as well as the first planned city and the first to use the “grid” as a settlement
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His town plan was a beautiful and spacious grid of two miles by one mile, that will completely fill up the land between the Philadelphia’s two rivers. In the century that followed, many other American town planners copied Penn’s plan. And today, Philadelphia has one of the strongest and most effective grids in the country. Salt Lake City, Utah, was originally planned by Joseph Smith and in 1847 built by Brigham Young after Smith died. Brigham used Smith’s “Plat of the City of Zion” to lay out the city along the lines of the cardinal points of the compass. The success of the Plat led to the construction of hundreds of new buildings by the Mormons, across Salt Lake City. In Riverside, Illinois, Fredrick Law Olmsted, famous for designing the New York Central Park, brought his artistry to one of the first planned suburbs in America. In his design of Riverside, he broke away from the conventional grid pattern and made a street block and lock pattern, which was inspired by the curvilinear nature of the Des Plaines River. You can always find a bit of Riverside DNA in most suburbs that are being built today. Not far from