City block

A city block, urban block or simply block is a central element of urban planning and urban design.

A city block is the smallest area that is surrounded by streets. City blocks are the space for buildings within the street pattern 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 other forms of tenure. City blocks are usually built-up to varying degrees and thus form the physical containers or 'streetwalls' of public space. Most cities are composed of a greater or lesser variety of sizes and shapes of urban block. For example, many pre-industrial cores of cities in Europe, Asia and the Middle-east tend to have irregularly shaped street patterns and urban blocks, while cities based on grids have much more regular arrangements.

Grid plan

In most cities of the world that were planned, rather than developing gradually over a long period of time, streets are typically laid out on a grid plan, so that city blocks are square or rectangular. Using the perimeter block development principle, city blocks are developed so that buildings are located along the perimeter of the block, with entrances facing the street, and semi-private courtyards in the rear of the buildings. This arrangement is intended to provide good social interaction among people.

City block (disambiguation)

City block may refer to:

Judge Dredd

Judge Dredd is a fictional character who appears in British comic books published by Rebellion Developments, as well as in a number of movie and video game adaptations. He was created by writer John Wagner and artist Carlos Ezquerra, and first appeared in the second issue of 2000 AD (1977), a weekly science-fiction anthology. He is that magazine's longest-running character.

Joseph Dredd is a law enforcement officer in the dystopian future city of Mega-City One in North America. He is a "street judge", empowered to summarily arrest, convict, sentence, and execute criminals.

The character of Dredd is well known and his name is sometimes invoked in discussions of police states, authoritarianism, and the rule of law.

Publication history

When Pat Mills was developing 2000 AD in 1976, he brought in his former writing partner, John Wagner, to develop characters. Wagner had written various Dirty Harry-style "tough cop" stories for other titles, and suggested a character who took that concept to its logical extreme. Mills had developed a horror strip called Judge Dread (after the British ska and reggae artist Alexander Minto Hughes ) but abandoned the idea as unsuitable for the new comic; but the name, with the spelling modified to "Dredd" at the suggestion of sub-editor Kelvin Gosnell, was adopted by Wagner.