Democracy and the urban grid are both ideal types, one is political, the other spatial, and both are believed to have universal qualities. Yet there are tensions and mismatches between the two. The grid as a spatial design that is human in every way, however generic and extreme. It is strongly related to unified belief systems, which have evolved independently around the world for practical and abstract reasons. This spatial design and the belief systems exhibit a reciprocal relationship and influence our behavior long ago and still today. Based on their belief systems, It also shows how ideals are pursued even if they are utopian, dictatorial or colonial. The grid radiates certainty, and represent control, manageability and power, an ideal, a technical ideal, but intended to make maximum use of the space. Democracy is a political ideal, not meant to maximize anything, but intended as a means of dealing with uncertainty through a process of optimization. While democracy needs constant work to strike a good balance, it is too often seen as a technical ideal intended to maximize, achieve a certain end goal, with institutions often showing a lack of vitality and believing that the simple the fact that they are there is enough... And it is not... How then to connect urban democracy with spatial design and planning?