[robertnealan]

Hamburg's mentioned plan reminds me of Daniel Burnham's 1905 plan for San Francsico, which would have created Panhandle-like parks running all over the city as well as diagonal avenues connecting major points of interest a-la Paris or Washington DC. The 1906 earthquake would've been the perfect opportunity to make it a reality, but unfortunately it never went anywhere.

Map: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/fe/Burnham_San_Fr...

[100k]

Such a huge lost opportunity. Many cities (Boston, Minneapolis) have very beautiful parks connected by chains of greenways. San Francisco could have built that, but didn't, and the lack of parks in the Eastern part of the city has a major negative effect on livability. Consider how nice South Park seems compared to the rest of SOMA.