Why cul-de-sacs are bad for your health
1–10 of 143 posts
Re: Why cul-de-sacs are bad for your health
#2Walkable neighborhoods are like environmentally friendly homes... people won't usually pay as much more than what they cost as they will for McMansions, so builder's don't want to build them. I live on a cul de sac and my kids play games on the street with the neighbor kids, but we are the only family on the block that walks to the local park just outside of our neighborhood. We do walk to that park, but drive to the indoor play/swimming complex 2 miles away. So the rules of thumb in this article apply to my family, but not the others on my block.
Re: Why cul-de-sacs are bad for your health
#3This is interesting and I always love urban planning discussions, but I feel there is something a little off about this. It seems to be suggesting that that reason people in non-urban areas are overweight / drive is because of dendritic street patterns, but those exist and are emblematic of a lower population density.
If you took my grandfather's fully rural town in the middle of Nebraska, there isn't much in the way of cul-de-sacs but people still drive everywhere because of - what seems to me - the more dominant issue of population density.
Re: Why cul-de-sacs are bad for your health
#4This is interesting and I always love urban planning discussions, but I feel there is something a little off about this. It seems to be suggesting that that reason people in non-urban areas are overweight / drive is because of dendritic street patterns, but those exist and are emblematic of a lower population density. If you took my grandfather's fully rural town in the middle of Nebraska, there isn't much in the way…
If your grandfather's rural town was anything like my family's, it used to have a lively main street. Unfortunately the viability of that walkable neighborhood has been decimated by decades of greenfield construction out by the interstate.
Re: Why cul-de-sacs are bad for your health
#5This is interesting and I always love urban planning discussions, but I feel there is something a little off about this. It seems to be suggesting that that reason people in non-urban areas are overweight / drive is because of dendritic street patterns, but those exist and are emblematic of a lower population density. If you took my grandfather's fully rural town in the middle of Nebraska, there isn't much in the way…
Density is an effect and not a cause of design. My dad grew up in Bend, Oregon during the Depression. People had cars but walked to work, typically at the sawmill. Bend was a small town and not the tourist destination it is today, but it was apparently designed to be walkable. Go to Bend today though, and it's been rebuilt for cars rather than humans.
Re: Why cul-de-sacs are bad for your health
#6Walkable neighborhoods are like environmentally friendly homes... people won't usually pay as much more than what they cost as they will for McMansions, so builder's don't want to build them. I live on a cul de sac and my kids play games on the street with the neighbor kids, but we are the only family on the block that walks to the local park just outside of our neighborhood. We do walk to that park, but drive to the…
Not that it directly relates to your comment, but Midtown Atlanta is filled with brand-new high-rise condominium buildings at an incredibly high price. They continue to build more of them even right now, so there is still healthy demand there.
Re: Why cul-de-sacs are bad for your health
#7This is interesting and I always love urban planning discussions, but I feel there is something a little off about this. It seems to be suggesting that that reason people in non-urban areas are overweight / drive is because of dendritic street patterns, but those exist and are emblematic of a lower population density. If you took my grandfather's fully rural town in the middle of Nebraska, there isn't much in the way…
Cul-de-sacs can coexist with walkable neighborhoods, you just need to add ped/bike-only paths between the "bulbs". Additionally, cul-de-sacs breed a higher level of community than through-streets which has other benefits.
You're right about low density being the more serious issue. That and zoning forbidding mixed-use and mandating parking minimums.
Re: Why cul-de-sacs are bad for your health
#8I'll never understand why we continue to design our suburbs for cars and driving with no attempt to encourage walking. Instead, we seem to discourage walking through a lack of sidewalks, concentration of destinations surrounded by parking lots a mile wide themselves, and burying houses in subdivisions that require almost a mile walk just to get out of.
Re: Why cul-de-sacs are bad for your health
#9these analysis fall apart once you realize that people with kids need more room.
Mableton Homes With Kids: 32.8% 2 bedroom: $56,600
Midtown Homes With Kids: 5.2% 2 bedroom: $ 253,700
http://www.zillow.com/local-info/GA-Mableton-people/r_32619/ http://www.zillow.com/local-info/GA-Atlanta/Midtown-people/r... http://www.zillow.com/local-info/GA-Mableton-home-value/r_32... http://www.zillow.com/local-info/GA-Atlanta/Midtown-home-val...
Re: Why cul-de-sacs are bad for your health
#10The article mentions that Atlantic Station sits on a large parking deck, but doesn't explore how its 7,200 parking spaces can make an otherwise small outdoor mall very busy at popular times. Cars remove you from your immediate surroundings, but they also enable you to temporarily be part of a community physically distant from where you live.
The answer to why Atlantans drive so much is not that they are lazy, but that they have somewhere else to be. You can lament that walking is good exercise, or you can appreciate the ability to raise a family in a house with a backyard while having a reasonable commute to a Fortune 500 company's world headquarters, a startup community, or a global research university.
Walking everywhere is nice as long as you know exactly where you want to live, you don't care about space, and can afford high rent.