Chapter 11: The Agricultural Core

The plains of North America's interior are a huge, undulating swath of land. The interior plain's western portion is dry and dominated by grasslands--it is the area that is known for its grand boundless openness, s--known as the Great Plains and Prairies. However, the eastern plain is quite different. The air is humid throughout the growing season (helping produce different vegetation), and it rains much more often. The agricultural core is defined by its small town, rural America.

Washington D.C. is a metropolitan area and not a rural farming area, but D.C. shares common ground with the Agricultural core in that both area's land and cities are laid out in a grid format.

Through the land ordinance of 1785, the Land Ordinance of 1785, land north of the Ohio River and west of Pennsylvania was delimited according to a regular, rectangular township and range survey before it was opened to settlement by the newly independent U.S. States. A series of east-west baselines and north-south meridian lines were drawn, and township squares 6 miles on each side were laid out with respect to these lines. Each township was further divided into 36 sections of 1 square mile.

A modern example of the Township and Range model

Though not farmland, the city of Washington D.C. is divided into similar grid-based areas.

Wikipedia states that, "L'Enfant incorporated a basic grid system, inter-cut with broad diagonal avenues radiating from rectangles to provide open spaces and vistas. His design also envisioned a garden-lined "grand avenue" approximately 1 mile (1.6 km) in length and 400 feet (120 m) wide in the area that is now the National Mall.^[3] In 1792, surveyor Andrew Ellicott revised L'Enfant's plan, creating the design that the federal city's development followed.^[4][5]"

L'Enfant's original plans for the city of Washington D.C.

He used the United States Capitol as the center from which the four other quadrants (Southwest, Southeast, Northwest, and Northeast) stem from. The quadrants are separated by North Capitol Street, South Capitol Street, and East Capitol street, with a line traveling west from the Capitol through the Jefferson Pier on the National Mall serving as he fourth border line. Constitution Avenue and Independence Avenue line the sides of the area.

North/South streets are designated by numbers and count upwards from east to west in the Northwest and Southwest quadrants of the city, starting at the capitol. In the Northeast and Southeast Quadrants, these streets repeat, but count upwards from West to East, going away from the capitol. East/West streets use a single letter of the alphabet. Street letters count upwards traveling outward from the dividing lines of the quadrants, however, there is no J street.

All information from Washington D.C. Tourism site, the Textbook, and Wikipedia.