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Just look at Boston versus Berlin in the article. Even the "messy" Boston looks unnaturally organized for me (I'm German, though not from Berlin).

the organized parts of Boston are largely landfill that did not even exist until the 1800's[1]. If you look at the old parts, it looks like Berlin.

[1] http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/cas/fnart/fa267/boston/growth.g...

My thoughts exactly. Boston looks more patchwork than chaos. The only one approaching the European style is DC, and even that is not quite the same.

This joke has been going around for a few years: http://jefferly.com/2013/01/04/street-grids-ny-vs-boston/

Washington is actually a much better example of an organic-ish area, in terms of street grain. This is pretty ironic, given that the City of Washington (originally just one part of the District of Columbia) was totally planned.