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This story is part of a Reporter’s Notebook series for Inman Intel that accompanies our larger feature on utopian cities. Read the main feature here.
When I was interviewing Michael Rodriguez — director of research at non-profit Smart Growth America — for a larger feature on cities of the future, he mentioned the idea that great places are layered with generation after generation of history. Immediately when he said this, I thought of Verona, Italy.
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I visited Verona back in 2014. The city was founded by the ancient Romans, and while I was wandering around, I noticed a bronze plaque on the ground showing the ancient Roman street grid. The fact that there was once a street grid is interesting, but not unique; hundreds of cities across Europe have Roman origins, and were once laid out according to Roman urban planning principles.
A plaque in Verona, Italy, showing the old Roman street grid. Credit: Jim Dalrymple II
What jumped out to me in this case, however, was that by seeing the Roman grid, it was also possible to see how it had changed and evolved over the millennial. I quickly pulled out my phone and checked Google Maps, discovering that the grid still sort of exists, though it has been modified and cut up. New paths criss cross the city, apparently the result of people making shortcuts again and again for centuries.
When I think of a “layered city,” my instinct is to imagine an archeologist digging down in the dirt and discovering artifacts or an old mosaic floor. But the Verona street grid is an example of how the actual infrastructure of a city — its skeleton, if you will — evolves over time as well. Roman engineers did what they thought was best, and then people spent 2,000 years tweaking the city to work more effectively in the real world.
The streets themselves are the layers.
Piazza delle Erbe in the old city of Verona, Italy. It was once the town’s forum during the time of the Roman Empire and is the oldest square in the city. UNESCO have declared the old city a World Heritage Site.
This is both hope-inducing and existentially fraught. It gives hope because it means whatever our urban problems are right now, over time solutions will be found and another layer will be added. On the other hand, it can take a long time to produce a place as charming as an old Italian town.
Either way, it’s a case study proving Rodriguez’s point that cities take time to become great.
