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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

#41

Post by [deleted] »

officemonkey wrote: post #35
bcoates wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article wasn't complaining about density but about structure; a fences-and-backyards suburb arranged on a grid or some other well-connected layout is much more walkable than the same density suburb where all traffic must pass through a distant trunk to a major street. This makes it possible to actually connect useful mass transit to the suburb, which as the article explained, people will use if it's there.

Chicago nails this. The grid road network throughout the entire city means there is regular N-S and E-W bus service every half mile or so. And there are business districts in pretty much every neighborhood. This happens is areas of low housing density (single-family homes in Jefferson Park) and high density (high-rises in Lincoln Park.)

[deleted]

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

#42

Post by officemonkey »

MAGZine wrote: post #34
lucaspiller wrote: post #30

> Aesthetics matter. We walk farther when streets feel safe and interesting. People who live in central New York or London typically walk between a third to a half mile to go shopping. That’s a four- to 10-minute stroll. I don't think aesthetics is really the main point. Older cities like New York and London aren't designed for cars. High rise buildings don't have parking for every home / desk so it isn't an option t…

Underground parking provides plenty of avenues for people to own a car if they want. However, these cities are so well connected that it doesn't make sense to own a car because it's easier to walk, and given the option, people wouldn't want to navigate streets if they have the option of walking to work or shopping. Cul-de-sacs on the other hand are the signature of urban sprawl. If you live in a cul-de-sac, odds that…

Driving around underground parking is also unpleasant, so instead of firing up the car to drive to the megaplex supermarket, you're more likely to the shop down the street.

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

#43

Post by dasil003 »

sliverstorm wrote: post #29
potatolicious wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Anything other than a perfect grid in neighborhood design is due to classism? Sounds like bullshit to me. Mildly meandering side-streets: - Block some of the noise from nearby major streets - Obscure the view of traffic - Give the neighborhood a less "uniform" feel (think of how you feel in a neighborhood with 20 identical houses in a row. Arrow-straight roads contribute to that feeling) - Reduce through-traffic- not…

> Anything other than a perfect grid in neighborhood design is due to classism?

Wow, talk about putting words in his mouth. He's referring to the status quo for American suburbs where those meandering side streets don't connect the arterials except at just a few choke points and there is no walking connectivity either. Fix those things does not imply "perfect grid".

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

#44

Post by wwweston »

ynniv wrote: post #31
bcoates wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article wasn't complaining about density but about structure; a fences-and-backyards suburb arranged on a grid or some other well-connected layout is much more walkable than the same density suburb where all traffic must pass through a distant trunk to a major street. This makes it possible to actually connect useful mass transit to the suburb, which as the article explained, people will use if it's there.

That's the catchy title, but the article is really about density and transportation by car. There's a nice diagram describing how living in the suburbs reduces the number of places in walking distance, but in that diagram the house isn't even on a cul-de-sac. The thesis is actually that cul-de-sacs increase driving distance, because the places where they are used tend not to have any walkable destinations. This makes…

>The thesis is actually that cul-de-sacs increase driving distance, because the places where they are used tend not to have any walkable destinations.

The correlation seems credible, but not the causitive. That is, you probably could build developments where cul-de-sacs are common for streets and where mixed use properties are connected by walking paths.

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

#45

Post by dllthomas »

jchrisa wrote: post #32
ChuckMcM wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess it is unfortunate that the suburbs are where the poor are these days [1]. I think your description is accurate although the motivations are not. Neighbourhoods were designed to be convenient to residents and inconvenient to non-residents. This does discourage crime as it makes non-residents more visible and that makes it more difficult to commit a crime and not be noticed. [1] http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Soc…

By non-residents do you mean non-drivers?

Envision a tree, and consider who might be traveling the links near the leaves. It will be fewer people - and more predictably the same people - compared to a grid where anyone could reasonably take any path through the graph.

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

#46

Post by sliverstorm »

dasil003 wrote: post #43
sliverstorm wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anything other than a perfect grid in neighborhood design is due to classism? Sounds like bullshit to me. Mildly meandering side-streets: - Block some of the noise from nearby major streets - Obscure the view of traffic - Give the neighborhood a less "uniform" feel (think of how you feel in a neighborhood with 20 identical houses in a row. Arrow-straight roads contribute to that feeling) - Reduce through-traffic- not…

> Anything other than a perfect grid in neighborhood design is due to classism? Wow, talk about putting words in his mouth. He's referring to the status quo for American suburbs where those meandering side streets don't connect the arterials except at just a few choke points and there is no walking connectivity either. Fix those things does not imply "perfect grid".

He isn't complaining only about poor connections to main streets, he references meandering side streets several times as well... Anyway, every bullet I listed applies just as well to reducing "entry/exit points" as it does to meandering side streets, so I would argue limited "entry/exit" also does not mean classism was behind the neighborhood layout.

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

#47

Post by genwin »

enjo wrote: post #26
genwin wrote: post #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.

That's not true for any city I've been to in the U.S. I'm seriously trying to think of a single one that doesn't have sprawling bungalow neighborhoods near the center of the city. These are historically known as "streetcar suburbs", as most cities had actual fixed transit networks throughout the city itself. Today these are close-in neighborhoods full of generally smaller homes with yards. They tend to have small yar…

If it's too expensive or inner-city or a money pit or ugly or cheaply-built it's off my radar. That includes Capitol Hill and Queen Anne-type areas, or anything built prior to 1950 and most stuff built after 1990. Given my criteria, in Denver a 1960s+ small house would likely still have a big lot. If not a big lot it tends to have parking for only 1 car. Albuquerque has the best type of higher-density housing I've seen with quality townhouses, having small private yards and 2-car garages in the suburbs.

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

#48

Post by [deleted] »

ynniv wrote: post #10

The 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 tha…

[deleted]

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

#49

Post by biondim »

redthrowaway wrote: post #12

>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?

It's an arbitrary number that the media likes to tout. There's no real number. 10km / day is about right. If you break it up into pieces (walk to the subway, walk around the office, walk home), it really isn't that big a deal.

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

#50

Post by Stronico »

Two observations:

1. There are far, far more differences between Midtown and Mabelton than urban planning (Midtown is a young, liberal, much higher than average percentage of gay residents, close proximity to Georgia Tech) and Mabelton is pretty much in the opposite direction in every way possible. It is an apples to oranges comparison.

2. A huge advantage of cul-de sacs is that people don't speed down them like they do on residential connective streets, which is a huge plus when you have children of a certain age.

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