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Why cul-de-sacs are bad for your health

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Re: Why cul-de-sacs are bad for your health

#11
post #8

I'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.

A large part of it is crime and/or race. The modern subdivision - full of meandering streets and poor connectivity to nearby arterials - is deliberate. It creates the gated neighborhood effect without the need to put up any unsightly walls or gates, and in effect keeps its residents separated from the world outside.

The world outside presumably filled with undesirables.

The lack of connectivity discourages through traffic (i.e., undesirables), and meandering streets that run every which way helps artificially draw out the walking distance between any two points, further hobbling any desire or ability for people who walk/take transit to visit (i.e., undesirables).

Suburbs weren't always like this, we had walkable suburbs a long time ago, and in some places we have them again. But the most typical archetype of a suburban neighborhood is an exercise in extremely class-conscious design.

Despite the revitalization of urban cores across the US, the mentality that drove the construction of these suburbs still remains. The thing that jumps into my mind is the furor over Seattle's extension of light rail into Bellevue - a high-income suburb. All of the opposition boiled down to "but the undesirables!".

Until we shake the whole "urban = poor" thing, we'll continue to architect our suburbs in this way.

Re: Why cul-de-sacs are bad for your health

#13
My more ideal city would have higher density housing but with small private yards, if only decks that seem like yards, something like this: http://www.dwell.com/house-tours/article/mountain-dwellings-...

In the US we have high density housing (condo skyscrapers) and low density housing (suburbs) but not much in-between that's nice.

Re: Why cul-de-sacs are bad for your health

#14

>Why do most people fail to walk even the 10,000 daily steps needed to stay healthy? Where does that figure come from? A lazy guestimate of 1m/stride puts that at 10km/day. That's 2 hours of walking a day. Who the hell spends 2 hours a day walking?

I don't know where the 10,000 daily steps figure comes from, but moving around more than two hours daily seems like a fairly reasonable thing to do in order to remain healthy.

Or maybe run for 45 minutes, or walk to work, or go swimming or do a ton of other physical activities I am not going to bother listing.

Personally I ride mountain bikes in every way possible, and time permitting also as often as possible.

Re: Why cul-de-sacs are bad for your health

#15

>Why do most people fail to walk even the 10,000 daily steps needed to stay healthy? Where does that figure come from? A lazy guestimate of 1m/stride puts that at 10km/day. That's 2 hours of walking a day. Who the hell spends 2 hours a day walking?

2 hours straight, no. but it adds up: 10 minutes to the train station 5 minutes transferring trains 10 minutes to work. 10 minutes to your desk 20 minutes to lunch and back. 10 minutes to train station 10 minutes home 10 minutes walking around home etc..

Re: Why cul-de-sacs are bad for your health

#16
post #8

I'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.

A large part of it is crime and/or race. The modern subdivision - full of meandering streets and poor connectivity to nearby arterials - is deliberate. It creates the gated neighborhood effect without the need to put up any unsightly walls or gates, and in effect keeps its residents separated from the world outside. The world outside presumably filled with undesirables. The lack of connectivity discourages through tr…

Amazing explanation (and makes complete sense). Thanks!

Re: Why cul-de-sacs are bad for your health

#17

>Why do most people fail to walk even the 10,000 daily steps needed to stay healthy? Where does that figure come from? A lazy guestimate of 1m/stride puts that at 10km/day. That's 2 hours of walking a day. Who the hell spends 2 hours a day walking?

Here's an about.com article that says it's medically unsupported. [1] (about.com isn't a great source but hey it's someone who's looked into it)

http://walking.about.com/od/measure/f/10000steps.htm

FWIW I live in central DC and walk for about 90% of my total trips (although I have a sedentary job and a short commute), and the moves app says I go roughly 3mi/day, which squares with my intuition looking at a map.

Re: Why cul-de-sacs are bad for your health

#18
post #8

I'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.

A large part of it is crime and/or race. The modern subdivision - full of meandering streets and poor connectivity to nearby arterials - is deliberate. It creates the gated neighborhood effect without the need to put up any unsightly walls or gates, and in effect keeps its residents separated from the world outside. The world outside presumably filled with undesirables. The lack of connectivity discourages through tr…

The problem I have with light rail in Bellevue is that it isn't very useful unless you live within walking distance of a station. I consider it to be mostly a boondoggle.

Re: Why cul-de-sacs are bad for your health

#19
Recently I was trying to find a new place to live in the suburbs where I could walk to a train. Time and time again, a nice short walk by the way the bird flies. Triple that if you don't want to walk through people's yards. I didn't even get so far as seeing if there were sidewalks.

Re: Why cul-de-sacs are bad for your health

#20
post #8

I'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.

A large part of it is crime and/or race. The modern subdivision - full of meandering streets and poor connectivity to nearby arterials - is deliberate. It creates the gated neighborhood effect without the need to put up any unsightly walls or gates, and in effect keeps its residents separated from the world outside. The world outside presumably filled with undesirables. The lack of connectivity discourages through tr…

Yes, this is why you'll see malls removing bike racks, and fighting against an extension of bus service to them in some areas.
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