The square form would be a terrible waste of space down there. It is the outcome of how the United States has planned and surveyed territory since the Revolutionary War's end. Because a grid method was used to survey any territory added to the US after 1783, every city created after 1785 will be planned on a grid. Before then, towns were founded anywhere and were usually just collections of houses built around a church or market place. After that, surveyors tried to divide up the land as evenly as possible into small squares with straight roads running through them. When a town grew too large for this system, it was divided into districts and new streets named according to direction: north, south, east, and west. American cities have no central business district because they were not meant to support industry. The population was expected to be low and stay that way, so most buildings were made out of wood and had thin walls compared to modern cities. Only major cities like Boston began to build stone or brick commercial centers, but they were always located near the waterfront where goods could be shipped in and people could travel by boat. By the 1840s, as industries started moving into America, these center cities grew exponentially and now account for most of the country's wealth and productivity. As time went on, the idea of putting streets on opposite sides of a block became impractical because of the cost.