What is a Diagram?

A diagram is:

any schematic visual explanation of an idea.
a picture taking advantage of the differences between how our minds process language and how they process images.
a series of charts, graphs and maps.
used to combine spatial and non-spatial ideas

What does a Diagram do?

A diagram:

In 1785 the Public Land Survey System was created.
¾ of U.S. land area would be surveyed, sold and settled.
Ignoring the natural geography, the system laid a grid of 6-mile-square townships (each composed of 36 one-mile-square sections) across the country’s midsection.
It was one of the most influential acts of spatial planning in human history as;
- it provided a fundraising mechanism for the federal government.
- its simplicity facilitated settlement of newly conquered territory minimizing conflict over land claims.
- it helped realize the aspiration of its sponsor, that the U.S should be a nation of small landowning farmers.

Samuel Johannes Holland was the surveyor/cartographer who mapped PEI and laid out its lots and parishes between the years of 1764 and 1766.
He began his Island mapping at Fort Amherst in October 1764, completing his PEI mapping two years later.
his maps are acknowledged by surveyors as being extremely accurate; so accurate, that if his map of P.E.I. – the first ever drawn – is overlaid on a satellite image, there are very few variations.
Holland divided the island into three counties, and then into 67 lots
Lennox Island was named after Charles Lennox, Duke of Richmond, by Samuel Holland.

The gridiron plan has been used to lay out cities since 450 BC when architect Hippodamus planned the Greek colony of Miletus.
The grid plan, grid street plan or gridiron plan is a type of city plan in which streets run at right angles to each other, forming a grid.

1765 Charlottetown was designated the capital city of the province.
In 1768 Charles Morris began laying out the streets of Charlottetown.
Thomas Wright created a layout of the town with 500 lots (84’ x 120’ each), streets 100’ wide stretching from the water and streets 80’ wide crossing at right angles, a central square for public buildings and four large green “squares”.
Later alterations allowed an encroachment of 40 feet on the east-west streets, creating lots 84’ x 160’.
On the non-water sides of the town, there was a 565-acre buffer of land called a common reserved for future expansion of the town.
Many changes have occurred over the years, but the basic 500 lots can still be defined and the 4 green squares are still in existence.