Recently in lecture we discussed the topic of different kinds of survey’s and the evolution of surveying methods. Just simply scrolling around the world on Google Earth one can see much older and sporadic urban plans, and much more modern layouts. Taking a look at London, a much older city than those in North America, a much less organized stance was taken into laying out the city:

But when looking at a much more modern city such as New York the developments in surveying and urban planning can be very clearly seen:

The reason for NYC being so much more appealing to the eye is because systematic surveying was clearly applied when developing the city. This means that lots were given very sharp, defined boundaries which were roughly equal in size. When looking at each “block” in the city, specifically in Manhattan, this is demonstrated. Each street along the lots are also well defined with clear labels such as “E 59th St”. This all results in a very organized and well planned city for which locating of individual parcels is made very easy alongside easy navigation of the city overall. I really find it fascinating how much surveying evolved during colonial times and the fact that two cities originally under the same flag can be so drastically different.

Another surveying system that I find particularly interesting is the seigneurial system which can be easily seen when looking online:

When establishing settlements in North America, the French applied the seigneurial system to their land developments. The idea behind this system is that a seigneur would rent the land to censitaires to raise families and work. The long slivers of land, as seen in the above screenshot, were designed to be systematic in that each lot provides farmers with the necessary land area and gives the tenant access to the river. While this seems like a reasonable plan, the way lots were distributed at the tenants death was not efficient. The lot was split up length wise, the widower receiving half the lot, the oldest son 1/4 of the lot, and the rest being divided among the remaining sons. Over time the lots end up getting so small they can’t be used for proper farming and are of little use to the owner. This major flaw appeared to have been overlooked when putting together the seigneurial system and is one of the reasons it ended up being replaced by the British township system.

The seigneurial system not only affected the landscape of New France but also the culture and development of the French settlers. Due to the plethora of land available at the time incoming people were able to freely choose where they would live, and more importantly who their seigneur was. This caused more settlers to migrate to more popular settlements and less to migrate to areas with bad seigneurs. Because of this the French people grew together as a community under their seigneur and established living areas to be passed on through generations. This helped define areas in Quebec still being lived in today.

While the provided screenshots are just some examples of surveying types there are of course many more depending where you are in the world. I look forward to learning about different ways land parcels are created and will definitely look into how other parts of the globe went about designing their living areas.

References:

https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/seigneurial-system