Savannah was planned. This is unusual in American urban history. Most American cities grew organically, without a master plan, shaped by the decisions of individual landowners, developers, and governments over decades and centuries. Savannah was different. James Oglethorpe laid out the city in 1733 according to a specific plan, and that plan has shaped the city ever since.
The plan is based on a unit called the ward. Each ward is a square block of land with a public square at its center, surrounded by lots for houses and civic buildings. The wards were designed to be self-sufficient communities, each with its own square, its own church, its own civic buildings. As the city grew, new wards were added, each following the same pattern.
The Squares
Savannah has twenty-two surviving squares. They are the most distinctive feature of the city's urban form, and they are the reason that Savannah is one of the most pleasant cities in the United States to walk in. The squares break the grid into a series of smaller spaces, each with its own character, each providing shade and relief from the street.
The squares are not decorative. They are structural. They organize the city into a series of human-scaled neighborhoods.
The squares are also a lesson in the value of public space. They are free to use, open to everyone, and maintained by the city. They are not the product of private development or corporate philanthropy. They are the product of a plan that was made in 1733 and has been honored, more or less, ever since.
The Architecture
The architecture of Savannah's historic district is predominantly Federal and Greek Revival, dating from the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The buildings are not individually remarkable — they are the standard commercial and residential architecture of their period — but they are remarkably well-preserved, and their collective effect is extraordinary.