The Ideal City has its origins in Renaissance ideas which drew upon more ancient ideas. Mormon authors have not generally talked upon the Plat of Zion beyond recognizing it as an example of an ideal city. This study compares the Plat of Zion with other examples of American Ideal Cities, specifically Philadelphia (Penn’s Holy Experiment) and Savannah (the Oglethorpe Plan). Each is found to have its basis in its founder’s philosophical/theological principles, which include in some sense communitarianism, utopianism, or societal equality, as well as being laid out in a grid pattern.

Bill Speer