Nitpick or two. Holborn in London was a little earlier. Also neither was really a grid. That took another ~45 years. Maybe that's better for your argument - but

Nitpick or two. Holborn in London was a little earlier. Also neither was really a grid. That took another ~45 years. Maybe that's better for your argument - but I'm not quite sure that the analogy fully holds - as it's a different class of infrastructure problem.