I think you should work with the layout. Maybe it won't seem so bad once you get it landscaped.
Although, my Sunshine town had a terrible map. I tried to live with it, and landscape it, but it just wasn't working. I ended up buying another copy, and transferred everything ( including villagers) into the new town. It was kind of cool, because the new town has the same characters and town name, so my villagers are always talking about mayor Rainbow from Sunshine. ( which is also the mayor and town name in their new town).