I find the grid to be much more walkable than more recent layouts which are overtly hostile to pedestrians. There's an entire ideal of "access control" in modern design (part of CPTED) that focuses on making it harder to get to places because criminals will use the access routes to evade capture. And of all the ways to deal with crime, making the built environment more alienating to everyone is among the worst.

But you can humanize the grid a little:

https://tilings.math.uni-bielefeld.de/substitution/pentomino...

https://tilings.math.uni-bielefeld.de/substitution/domino/

>I also consider the harmonization of automobile and pedestrian traffic to be an open problem. Maximalists on both sides just talk past each other.

In its early days, StrongTowns made a big deal out of arguing that parking should always be put behind commercial buildings instead of in front of them, so the storefront reaches the sidewalk. They've spent less time talking about this now because it attracts vitriol from the people who want to get rid of parking altogether. Unfortunately, it seems like the loud people have found the urbanism discourse.