Why it looks like this

Santiago de Cali is one of the oldest Spanish cities in the Americas, founded in 1536 with the usual checkerboard around a central plaza. The small Cali River comes down from the mountains right through the old centre.

The setting decided the shape: the fertile, table-flat Cauca Valley let the grid spread east and south almost without limits, while the steep green wall of the Farallones de Cali blocks the west — so the map is a grid pressed against mountains.