A plot of land, open to any possibility, then ordered by a set of intentions:  the town plan. The city street pattern represents the most basic of those intentions. It’s a powerful, resilient element, one too often overlooked as we make our way through our cities and towns. The street plan represents first principles.  It’s a template, arising from ideas about how to live:  widths of streets, sizes of blocks and neighborhoods, green spaces, functional divisions.  All these will govern daily life to a remarkable degree.  In the plan resides the resonant structure of the city; its harmonics, a steady hum over which the discordant tune of city life plays.  To know a city at the level of the grid and plan is to see the x-ray skeleton of a flesh and blood being.