Originally the word "street" simply meant a paved road (Latin: "via strata"). The word "street" is still sometimes used colloquially as a synonym for "road", for example in connection with the ancient Watling Street, but city residents and urban planners draw a crucial modern distinction: a road's main function is transportation, while streets facilitate public interaction. Examples of streets include pedestrian streets, alleys, and city-centre streets too crowded for road vehicles to pass. Conversely, highways and motorways are types of roads, but few would refer to them as streets (рис. 39).

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и
С		Рис. 39

Boulevard

A boulevard, often abbreviated Blvd, is type of large road, usually running through a city. In modern American usage it often means a wide, multilane arterial thoroughfare, divided with a median down the centre, and perhaps with roadways along each side designed as slow travel and parking lanes and for bicycle and pedestrian usage, often with an above-average quality of landscaping and scenery.

Larger and busier boulevards usually feature a median. In some countries, the term boulevard is rarely encountered; the term avenue is often used instead (рис. 40–44).

43

Рис. 40					И
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	и
С
Рис. 42

Рис. 41

Рис. 43

Рис. 44

44

Plaza

A plaza is an open urban public space, such as a city square.

All through Spanish America and the Spanish East Indies, the plaza mayor of each center of administration held three closely related institutions: the cathedral, the cabildo or administrative center, which might be incorporated in a wing of a governor's palace, and the audiencia or law court. The plaza might be large enough to serve as a military parade ground. At times of crisis or fiesta, it was the space where a large crowd might gather. Like the Italian piazza, the plaza remains a center of community life that is only equaled by the market-place.

Most colonial cities in Spanish America and the Philippines were planned

around a square plaza de armas, where troops could be mustered, as the name
	И
implies, surrounded by the governor's palace and the main church. A plaza de
toros is a bullring.	Д

In modern usage, a plaza can be any gathering place on a street or between buildings, a street intersection with a statue, etc. Today's metropolitan landscapes often incorporate the "plaza" as a design element, or as an outcome of zoning regulations, building budgetary constraints, and the like. Sociologist William H. Whyte conducted an extensive study of plazas in New York City: his study humanized the way modern urban plazas are conceptualized, and

helped usher in significant design changes in the making of plazas (рис. 45–
48).			А
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	и
С
Рис. 45			Рис. 46

45

Рис. 47	Рис. 48
	City block

planning and urban design. И

are the space for buildings within the streetДpattern of a city, and form the basic unit of a city's urban fabric. City blocks may be subdivided into any number of smaller land lots usually in private ownership, though in some cases, it may be

A city block, urban block or simply block is a central element of urban

other forms of tenure. City blocks Аare usually built-up to varying degrees and thus form the physical containers or 'streetwalls' of public space. Most cities are

A city block is the smallest area that is surrounded by streets. City blocks

composed of a greater or lesser variety of sizes and shapes of urban block. For
	б
example, many pre-industrial cores of cities in Europe, Asia and the Middle-
east tend to have irregularlyиshaped street patterns and urban blocks, while
cities based on grids have much more regular arrangements (рис. 49).
С

Рис. 49

46