The Great Cul-De-Sac Problem And How To Alleviate It.

The idea that people have that we have to live like sardines in some anime-inspired megalopolis is simply inaccurate.

If everyone lived in cities as dense as portland, the current human population would only be living on about 2.7% of the world's land mass. Obviously, in terms of resources, it's more complicated than that, but it's clear that sprawling out is terrible for the environment, and that for true nature-lovers, it's much more advantageous to live in a city that has no suburbs, where the world of people truly ends at the city limits.

Myth 1: Who is he to say how people feel about their neighborhood is nonsense? There are plenty where the neighbors know each other, their kids play, they have block parties and BBQs, and there's a strong fabric of trust. To pitch them all as "nonsense" is to sweep away all pretense of objectivity.

Myth 2: How much traffic someone gets varies widely with the street. In his red zone, I'd bet traffic is next-to-none on E. Radiom, Amona, E. Lemona, and Hallock; light on Nemo and Damson; medium on W. Radiom and W. Lemona; and "heavy" on the rest. But consider even Erie and Avila: no car would take both, and many will take neither; their realistic exposure is maybe 50-75 households? Compare that to a giant grid, where every street is a route to every other, and I don't think the outcome is clear at all. But it'd be dumb to get a house on N. Radio or N. Hale to avoid traffic, sure.

An added question is whether people speed more in a closed community or in a grid. Daily I see lots of people on main roads tear off onto residential streets to circumvent red lights, and the last thing they want to see when they meet back up with the artery is the people who waited, passing them by.

Myth 3: For the reasons above, less traffic traveling by my house -- which is clearly possible in these neighborhoods -- means less pollution in the form of noise, smoke, and gas fumes.

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Not to say the grid system doesn't have its merits, and I agree on some of them. But I don't think I'd want to see either system entirely eliminated... much less with the presumption that there are just millions of closed-minded people out there who are dead wrong about where they want to live, because they're simply not as enlightened as your humble author.

I live on a cul de sac and not a day goes by that I don't see someone speeding through the stop sign a few houses down. The cul de sac is not what appealed to me about where I'm living, and I would gladly give it up so I could ride my bicycle unimpeded to the subway station that's nearby without being forced out to the major highway that runs through the area.

(per the site owner's words: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3061633)