The city, for city it was, had been built on the shore of a large, slow-flowing river. Instead of a maze of streets, the metropolis was crisscrossed by canals. The infrastructure had been set up so that the river flow turned over the contents of the canals, but with a mild current. That also meant that a design based on right angles would be suboptimal. The actual shape was more like slightly rounded diamonds, with the long axis along the direction of flow. Even if nothing else had been different, it would have made for a more elegant, less utilitarian design than the typical Earth city.