Why cul-de-sacs are bad for your health

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_eye/2013/12/10/why_cul_de_sacs_are_bad_for_your_health_happy_city_by_charles_montgomery.html

by golfstrom • 13 years ago

127 138 13 years ago

slate.com

clarebear• 13 years ago

Walkable 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.

lanaius• 13 years ago

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.

runako3• 13 years ago

Worth noting since this is on HN: pretty much nothing in Atlanta is an "incredibly high price" by the standards of America's coastal cities.

Things may be relatively higher in Midwtown than places much further away, but none of it will be "expensive" for folks reading this.

jordo37• 13 years ago

This 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.

couchand• 13 years ago

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.

philwelch2• 13 years ago

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.

VladRussian2• 13 years ago

it was apparently designed to be walkable.

was it really "designed"? To me one of the issues with modern development is that it is explicitly "designed/planned" and thus diversity and vibrancy is naturally limited by the views/imagination of the designers/developers and politicians. (an illustration from another area - it is like "planned" economy vs. naturally evolving/developing capitalist economy)

Steltek• 13 years ago

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.

timjahn3• 13 years ago

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.

potatolicious4• 13 years ago

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.

timjahn3• 13 years ago

Amazing explanation (and makes complete sense). Thanks!

genwin4• 13 years ago

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.

jeffasinger• 13 years ago

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

agentultra• 13 years ago

They're designed like prisons.

They also ensure that there are two cars in every garage, guarantee a lifetime of high oil and gas consumption and are situated around big-box stores and malls. It's a very efficient, gilded jail.

Unfortunately dense urban development in my neck of the woods is essentially a forest of towers designed to be dorm-rooms for affluent twenty-somethings. Anything more than 2-bedrooms is absurdly expensive and rare. And the towers are rapidly turning into empty shells. I had to leave the city (and fortunately found a suitable, pleasant alternative) shortly after my wife and I had our first kid. I was terrified that we'd be forced out and into one of these communities.

ChuckMcM• 13 years ago

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/Society/2013/0911/Face-of-US-po...

sliverstorm3• 13 years ago

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 because "outsiders are undesirable" but because through-traffic is noisy

- Reduce speeds of through-traffic. Neighborhoods near thoroughfares often wind up battling with cars whizzing through at 45mph; gently tangled roads combats that.

You are right that it can make the neighborhoods a little less walkable (although reduced traffic can make them safer to walk). A nice solution I've seen is shared open spaces in the neighborhood; pedestrians and cyclists can then navigate freely, cutting through blocks as they like.

tptacek• 13 years ago

It's not about "undesirables", though surely there are some places where residents view that as a knock-on benefit. It's about through traffic. Residential streets that have very little traffic are more livable than ones with regular traffic. This is a design pattern from Christopher Alexander's book, which is not exactly a font of suburban Americana.

jimmaswell• 13 years ago

Maybe people don't like walking? I know I don't.

timjahn3• 13 years ago

Fair point, but you can design a neighborhood to be friendly to walking without being hostile to drivers (ie, putting in sidewalks and designing the layout in more of a grid fashion to put more destinations within walking distances).

VLM4• 13 years ago

Supposedly the financial value of a house is driven solely by its neighborhood (class, race) and its square footage, so as long as "every agrees sidewalks are worthless" then everyone is stuck in a "sidewalks are worthless" world. You need to get a majority of people to see a sidewalk as adding $$$ to the house rather than subtracting.

I've talked to many coworkers over the years who live in newer subdivisions without sidewalks. When mcmansions are so close together that you can stretch arms and touch two house at once, and no one has a backyard bigger than my garage, not having people walk in front of your house is seen as a privacy thing. Like, if you grew up in a "normal" house and then got stuck in a mcmansion subdivision and now your lawn is only roughly the size and dimensions of a driveway, you get kind of sensitive about what little you have. They see it as uncomfortable or creepy that I have sidewalks and are even more weirded out about the fact I actually use the sidewalks for after dinner walks like many of my neighbors, so I'm creepy for walking past houses and waving "hi" and stuff. Its kind of like non-nudists don't much understand nudists and vice versa. Which is getting a bit off topic but being a privacy and personal space type of thing is sorta on topic anyway. I think they're also weirded out by the bowl of spaghetti road designs, such that people seem to appear out of thin air 20 feet away and then disappear, unlike a more civilized street grid like where I live (about 60 years old, the house, not me (yet)) So hopefully that data provides some insight.

(edited to add it might be a territorial thing, like a dog. People raised to think 30 feet from their house is "theirs" are going to have weird attitudes about personal space when placed in a house with a front yard thats less than 5 feet deep, compared to a dude who lives on a one acre plot of land)

ynniv4• 13 years ago

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 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.

bcoates• 13 years ago

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.

ynniv4• 13 years ago

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 it possible to actually connect useful mass transit to the suburb, which as the article explained, people will use if it's there.

The article says that people in midtown take MARTA to the grocery store... I can confidently tell you that this is incorrect at best. People in midtown drive their car to Whole Foods on the way back from their 15 minute reverse commute to work in another part of town. They will later walk to a local restaurant, bar, the park, or a local grocery or retail store, but it is rare that they will use MARTA except to get to the airport.

officemonkey4• 13 years ago

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.)

jowiar• 13 years ago

can afford high rent.

In other words, demand for walkable housing / mixed-use development is high. Supply is low. And we should build more.

rayiner2• 13 years ago

I like Atlanta. I lived there for 7-8 years. People in Atlanta drive because the urban planning is a disaster. It's a place where you can live in the city proper right next to retail and still have to trek across a giant parking lot in order to go to the store. The giant parking lots everywhere in the city utterly destroy the street life. As the article notes, Atlantic Station is actually much better in that regard. Because the parking lot is underground, you can actually walk around window shopping and pretend it's not there.

The article absolutely hits the nail on the head with the point about parking lots. When my wife and I go to Philadelphia, we'll walk several miles from the federal plaza to U Penn campus, window shopping, having lunch, etc. When we go to the mall in Newark, DE, we'll drive from the Costco to the Panera because we literally can't figure out how to cross the road on foot.

The cities built in the 1960's need to be razed and redeveloped with Westchester, NY as a model. There's nothing wrong with having suburbs where you can have a back yard, etc, but structure those suburbs like small towns with retail of their own and rail service into the core city. Actually let people live right next to the rail and retail, instead of surrounding it all with enormous, pedestrian unfriendly parking lots.

ynniv4• 13 years ago

People in Atlanta drive because the urban planning is a disaster.

In my view it's more complicated than that.

Actually let people live right next to the rail and retail, instead of surrounding it all with enormous, pedestrian unfriendly parking lots.

Yup, that's what people are trying to do[1]. It's unpopular with commercial developers, so local government has to convince them to accept higher costs without causing a lawsuit or driving them away entirely[2].

[1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlanta_Beltline]

[2 http://atlanta.curbed.com/archives/2013/09/04/at-glenwood-sc...]

mrcactu5• 13 years ago

  I like Atlanta. I lived there for 7-8 years. 
  People in Atlanta drive because the urban planning is a disaster.

San Juan Puerto Rico -- it is the same. I live 8 miles from my job, 15 minutes by car, 1.5 hours by bus due to poor public transportation.

Biking would be faster than cars which get stuck in sever traffic and that buses which don't run very often.

https://www.google.com/maps?saddr=Quintas+de+Country+Club,+C...

It is not possible to commute by bicycle since it is illegal to bike along the expressway - the only way to get between Carolina (where I live) and Isla Verde (the next town over).

It has its origins in the 1950's when the expressway was brand new and led to job creation. Nobody dreamed bicycles could be taken seriously as a means to get to work.

I once biked it... about 10 miles in about a 1 hour.

https://www.google.com/maps?saddr=Quintas+de+Country+Club,+C...

Jakob2• 13 years ago

”Atlanta, like all cities, used to be walkable and people actually lived IN the city instead of commuting 50 miles every day.“

This article highlights the parts of the city which are 100% dedicated to parking: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6883589

tl;dr: Cars take up too much space, inflating a city artificially.

ynniv4• 13 years ago

(Originally https://news.ycombinator.com/x?fnid=lNCOH0M1fh7uhr9viMZvek)

Yes, there are a lot of parking lots in Atlanta. As I commented on the original submission, they aren't there because of the market for parking, but because it's an easy use for commercially zoned land while you wait for someone to build a highrise on it. (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3514352)

enoch_r• 13 years ago

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.

Taking this piece by piece:

can afford high rent

From the article: "The average working adult in Atlanta’s suburbs now drives 44 miles a day."

The IRS estimates that the average automobile cost about 55 cents per mile. At Atlantian levels of driving, that's almost $700 a month. That's a huge amount of rent money--but I think driving expenses are spread out, less visible, and less predictable, which leads people to underestimate them.

you don't care about space

Yeah, this is a tougher one, although you can get a surprising amount of space in walkable and transit-able areas--for example, neighborhoods in Portland manage to combine great walkability with quite a bit of space and single-family homes. (It's worth mentioning that these residential streets are laid out in a grid pattern without many cul de sacs.) But yeah, commuting does allow us to live where land is cheap, so if you really need a lot of private space, you might need to live further out.

you know exactly where you want to live

Well, it depends, doesn't it--the denser your area, the more options you'll have within walking distance. I very much doubt that I have more options within a 15-minute drive of my Orange County apartment than I would within a 15-minute drive in a typical urban center. On the other hand, without a car, my options in Orange County are extremely limited. A city like Boston, where other modes of transport preceded and then occasionally took precedence over the car, has great amenities (including Fortune 500 companies, startup communities, and global research universities). You just don't need to drive to them.

Lastly, the article isn't about "walking everywhere." It's about being able to walk to a grocery store safely and conveniently. It's perfectly possible to walk to the corner store every few days, but hop in the car when you need to travel longer distances.

chc7• 13 years ago

The IRS estimates that the average automobile cost about 55 cents per mile. At Atlantian levels of driving, that's almost $700 a month.

That doesn't really reflect my experience unless we're talking about really inefficient vehicles. I drive 45 miles a day. It costs me about $140 a month in gas.

tracker1• 13 years ago

It's worth considering that the 55 cents per mile average probably includes the cost of the car... if you're paying $500 a month for a car payment, and you need a car, even half as much, you still have to pay $500 for the payment... meaning if you spend half as much in gas, you're now at $600/month and paying >90 cents per mile, it's all relative. You only really save on the cost of a vehicle if you already own it (no payments) are lucky enough to have minimal maintenance costs, and/or can otherwise eliminate a vehicle payment. Gasoline is generally a fraction of the cost of owning/operating a car.

That said, I tend to live pretty centrally located mainly to make my commute easier, if I could also have nearby (within a 5-7 minute walking distance) shopping etc, I'd really like it. The Phoenix area added light rail (my apartment is actually really close to a stop), but only a limited number of places I need to go are along a nearby route.

Of course, I am pretty lazy... I've been parking farther away on purpose to get more walking in when I go places, including work.

Pxtl• 13 years ago

Somehow cities all over the world manage to offer that kind of facility without oceans of parking lots. Parking takes up space, which pushes things further apart, which makes it impossibly to serve with transit, which demands cars, which requires more parking. Skip the parking and build up and you find that you can have a nice back yard and a bus-stop at the end of the street that will take you to a subway or train-line that will take you to work.

There is nothing magical about big, vertical cities that demands they be horribly expensive. They're expensive because they're rare. They're rare because of city planners who don't push back on developers that want to build sprawl.

coldtea2• 13 years ago

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.

Going into a mall hardly qualifies as "being part of a community".

redthrowaway• 13 years ago

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?

flexd2• 13 years ago

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.

AznHisoka• 13 years ago

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..

lucaspiller3• 13 years ago

I used to live in a city centre without a car. My office was only a 20 minute walk (or about the same by bus due to traffic), so I did that usually. If I wanted to go shopping it was about 10 minutes to the nearest mall. I used Moves [0] to track how much I walked, and it was around 60km/week.

[0] https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/moves/id509204969

showerst• 13 years ago

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.

pgrote• 13 years ago

The same people who gave us the drink 8 glasses of water a day.

I did find two studies related to amount of walking to show health benefits:

http://link.springer.com/article/10.2165/00007256-199723050-...

http://wlv.openrepository.com/wlv/handle/2436/11110

No mention of number of steps. I think people add it for a way to equate a certain amount of time walking.

b3b0p• 13 years ago

From my experience, walking for 45-60 minutes in addition to my daily routine (the items mentioned by other posters already) add up to about the 10,000 step goal.

I try to bike to work every day and/or walk about 5km in addition to anything else I do (work, lifting weights, etc).

I don't measure (anymore). I just try to move my body as much as I can when I can.

biondim2• 13 years ago

I have a fit bit. I agree, the more you do it, the easier it gets. It's just one of those things. I try to walk to work every day if possible - it's about 3 mi each way. Walking is a much nicer way to start the day compared to mass transit.

nilsbunger2• 13 years ago

Fitbit promotes the 10,000 step number. They have a blog post with links to sources. http://blog.fitbit.com/?p=194

Having several family members with fit bits, I can tell you it's definitely do-able. It adds up more quickly than you think!

biondim2• 13 years ago

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.

VLM4• 13 years ago

Extensive personal experience with a fitbit indicates that:

1) Its downright difficult to get thru even the laziest day without 4000 or so steps

2) 10K means you "exercised" perhaps an hour. I'm not talking about sprint training but went out for a walk, hiking, etc. Half hour at lunchtime won't quite do it (maybe if you speedwalk?)

3) Its really easy to leave the GD thing in your pocket and wash it. Although running thru a dryer cycle immediately will fix it.

4) low power BT is kind of like NFC. There's apple products, and a couple android devices claim to half A support it but in reality it doesn't work. So in real world practice its apple or nothing for NFC and low power BT aka BT 4.0. And its been that way for some years.

sarah2079• 13 years ago

1 & 2 agree with my experience, and I am very sedentary during work hours.

michael_h• 13 years ago

I dramatically increased the number of steps that I take per day by drinking more water and tea. I hit 8K before I go home easily everyday.

patmcc• 13 years ago

Commute to/from work: 50 minutes. Walking in lunch hour: 50 minutes. Walking in the evening to relax: 20 minutes.

Not to mention the trips to the washroom/photocopier/kitchen/whatever. It's not hard to do, especially if you avoid driving when you can. There are lots of people who spend 2 hours a day driving, yet oddly that doesn't seem as crazy to you?

beat• 13 years ago

Who the hell spends 2 hours a day walking?

Healthy people.

My Fitbit defaults to wanting to see 10k steps a day, and 5 miles a day, which is more than 10k steps for my stride. My daily average steps is a bit over 8400 (including jogging for a bit less than 5k twice a week or so), and my average mileage is 3.8. I typically take one walk a day during work, for maybe 1000 steps.

flexd2• 13 years ago

Now if only I would remember to wear my Fitbit.

I keep forgetting I've put it to charge and never put it on.

genwin4• 13 years ago

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.

enjo• 13 years ago

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 yards, as they are generally built pretty close together.

I live in Denver which has an enormous number of those homes ringing Downtown. New Orleans has the garden district and surround. San Francisco fits that bill with the huge number of row-homes in the city(although the costs are nuts). Portland most certainly has a lot of that stock. Capitol Hill all the way to the Queen Anne in Seattle fits that bill. Dallas has the park cities. New York City has queens. Little Rock even has an excellent selection of inner-city bungalows (the neighborhoods are in poor repair, but they exist).

The issue we have in the U.S. is cultural. I think it's a widespread mental disease. We're willing to drive enormous distances, spending huge chunks of our lives in cars, so that we can own giant houses full of rooms we don't even use. It's nuts.

genwin4• 13 years ago

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.

kingmanaz• 13 years ago

Historically, elm-lined streets made neighborhoods comprised of smaller homes more attractive:

http://www.fs.fed.us/wildflowers/news/images/amelmstreet.jpg

Todays municipalities are shunning urban forestry for miserly xeroscape landscaping. "Native landscaping" is often anything but, and has turned entire neighborhoods and towns into gravel strewn deserts. Obsession over costs has reduced much of America into a series of soulless strip malls and gated communities. Historic districts are today largely devoted to tourists while the rest of America lives in chicken wire and stucco tract homes made by economic refugees rather than craftsman. America is ugly because its people will not pay for beauty.

Regarding smaller yards, a return to < 1000 sq. ft. Sears-Catalog style architecture may be a more aesthetic alternative than heaping up duplexes or townhouses, or heaven forbid, closely packed trailer parks. Also, building codes should be loosened. Nothing kills the spirit of a neighborhood like "military review" uniformity in home construction.

geetee• 13 years ago

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.

lucaspiller3• 13 years ago

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 to have that many cars in the city.

MAGZine• 13 years ago

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 walking to shopping isn't very convenient. You also probably have a car, so why bother?

officemonkey4• 13 years ago

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.

lucaspiller3• 13 years ago

In London at least there is very little underground parking. Most buildings are 50+ years old, and even in new builds it isn't very common.

When I was working there, in a building with ~2000 desks, the underground car park had a spacious 80 spaces. I lived a bit further out, so I actually had a driveway, but if you live in the centre you are lucky to even get on-street parking.

Still, as you say, it makes no sense to have a car due to the easy availability of public transport. It's a catch 22 really :)

nilsbunger2• 13 years ago

If each cul-de-sac just had a walking path cut out of it, I think you'd have the ideal. That's what it's like in small-town Holland. Cul-de-sacs do have other benefits like a quiet street and keeping your little kids "corralled".

alex-g2• 13 years ago

I agree. There are good reasons to want to live on a street that doesn't have a lot of traffic. (That doesn't equate to a cul-de-sac, although they trivially fit the pattern because there is only one end.) One of the problems with the street layouts described here is that pedestrians have to follow the same winding routes that the cars do. Another is that the larger, heavier-traffic roads aren't nice to walk along, even if they have sidewalks.

stonemetal• 13 years ago

One of the problems with the street layouts described here is that pedestrians have to follow the same winding routes that the cars do.

Why do they have to? I don't see why you couldn't build a more natural walking path away from the street traffic that would be less objectionable to homeowners since there wouldn't be the automotive noise and danger to children.

jstalin2• 13 years ago

Some people like dead-end streets and large yards. Some people want to prevent people from having such an option.

mason2403• 13 years ago

It really is amazing how much urbanites hate the happiness of others.

a_c_s• 13 years ago

It is really amazing how much suburbanites like to let other people pay the price for their choices.

slurry• 13 years ago

Some people like high-rise apartments right next to the train station. Some people want to prevent people from having such an option.

jstalin2• 13 years ago

I'm fine with both, as long as both parties are bearing the costs of their chosen option.

Stronico5• 13 years ago

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.

ch4s32• 13 years ago

Re: 2. Narrower streets do the same thing for traffic speed. For an added bonus, tree lined streets slow traffic even more due to how nearby moving objects in your peripheral vision change your perception of how fast you're moving.

So, you can get the desired effect of the cul-de-sac without the cul-de-sac.

Stronico5• 13 years ago

I live on a narrow street, with lots of trees, and lots of street parking, which makes it one lane in many parts. And Speed humps. It seems to make the cautious drive slower, but the speeders don't seem to be affected that much.

possibilistic• 13 years ago

Speaking as an Atlantan, you've nailed it. People living OTP (outside the perimeter of I-285) are largely conservative, whereas those ITP are much more liberal.

You wouldn't imagine that such a finely delineated categorical segmentation would occur, but it's very visible. Take, for instance, the fighting between Fulton County and the metro/MSA: last year's SPLOST vote [1], the Braves Stadium move [2], etc. all serve to exemplify how polar these two populations are.

Those in the city want regional tax money to improve transportation in and around the city, those outside the city want to be left alone (yet still be able to commute to the city); Atlantans bemoan urban sprawl, suburbanites loathe city spending. It's interesting to watch nothing get done.

[1] http://southernspaces.org/sites/southernspaces.org/files/ima...

[2] http://www.ajc.com/news/sports/baseball/braves-plan-to-build...

libria• 13 years ago

the Braves Stadium move

Wow, first I'd heard of it. I mean Turner Field is all of 16 years old; probably time for a new one. At least that should alleviate the summer downtown congestion, though I don't believe 285/75 really needs it. There's a section there that I thought I counted 9 lanes. Using City-of-Atlanta logic, I guess it's time for a 10th one, eh?

More on topic, will Cobb now allow MARTA to extend up there now that a stadium is coming?

(from article) > Reed concluded his statement by saying he is “excited” about potential future uses of “the land that is now Turner Field.”

Really. Can't wait to see what he's planning, b/c damned if I'd ever call that section of town exciting.

learc83• 13 years ago

He also took the example of young white males from Mableton and midtown.

There aren't a lot of young white men living in Mableton. It's mostly younger black and hispanic people, and older white people.

My parents are from Mableton,and I live about 10 minutes away.

ChrisNorstrom• 13 years ago

I did some research on cul-de-sacs using my own neighborhood using Google satellite images: It's gotten so out of control that you have to drive upwards of 4 miles just to see your neighbors when they're only a few yards away on a neighboring street: http://www.chrisnorstrom.com/2011/10/the-great-cul-de-sac-pr...

I can understand the allure of cul-de-sacs but perhaps a regular "street grid" system with "pipe sprouts" would be better for everyone. Overall, our American lifestyle is the culprit here. Just compare any small American town with a small Italian town: http://www.flickr.com/photos/fedesk8/7880293850/ and you'll notice what the cause of bad public transit and over-use of cars is. We seem to have a passion for living far apart and having our space.

TillE• 13 years ago

In my experience, even the most rural farmland of Germany is more walkable than most American suburbs. Houses are quite far apart, but there's still decent bus service, and you can walk into town in maybe 20 minutes without crossing a highway.

Most suburbs are just bad design through and through. They're not really optimal at achieving their goals, and they have countless terrible side effects.

halcyondaze• 13 years ago

I grew up on a double cul-de-sac street so I am clearly the most unhealthy.

VLM4• 13 years ago

I can see why the story about Atlanta was contrived to run in the winter. I spent some time in the South in my youth and you'd have to be ... overly acclimatized to intentionally set foot outside air conditioning from June to September or so. Its not just sauna-like, it fits the temp and humidity of a sauna exactly. So you're going to need to own a car with AC, and you're going to pay the extensive monthly bills if you use it or not, so may as well use it. I never really did anything outside in the south intentionally all summer long. I went out a couple times at night when it got down to the upper 70s as a low, sometimes, but the mosquitos were the size of hummingbirds. Aside from the summer weather its beautiful land and nice people.

jackalope• 13 years ago

I don't buy it. Cul-de-sacs experience less crime, fewer traffic accidents and are very conducive to taking safe leisurely walks. The problem is that some neighborhoods don't provide efficient pathways for practical pedestrian traffic between major destinations, which isn't caused by cul-de-sacs, but poor planning. Communities that provide pathways between cul-de-sacs away from traffic that connect such points have the best of both worlds. I envy them, because I live in a cul-de-sac that is about a mile from our schools as the crow flies, but the only available route adds 2 miles, driving or walking.

webXL• 13 years ago

tl;dr

Connectivity counts: More intersections mean more walking, and more disconnected cul-de-sacs mean more driving. People who live in neighborhoods with latticeworklike streets actually drive 26 percent fewer miles than people in the cul-de-sac forest.

JoeAltmaier• 13 years ago

That's a darned shame. Because streets use a shameful fraction of our city surface area. Cul-de-sacs can be quite efficient. Kind of like a dendritic structure, every endpoint served with a relative minimum of cement.

I imagine the stats are because folks like to walk a circuit, not walk out-and-back on the same route, because its boring.

peatmoss• 13 years ago

It more relates to the relative size of the service area and the fact that pedestrians have a steeper distance decay function than other modes.

rietta• 13 years ago

This strikes me as an interesting read. I live in an Atlanta suburb.

The closest shopping center is more than half a mile away and the one I go to most, and where I go to check my company's mail, is 2.5 miles away. The distances themselves are not so bad, but the main road is a 4 lane highway with a posted speed limit of 55 - but people drive faster. Frankly, the thought of walking or biking along that road is scary from a safety point of view, so yes, in general I drive everywhere. Ironically, if I want to go run laps at the closest city park, I have to drive to that too.

The area that the author is describing is 25 miles away and takes at least 45 minutes to an hour each way by car, so I go there as infrequently as possible.

Frankly the situation is not too bad, because telecommuting is the best work situation ever. The internet beats commuting - be it by bus, train, or automobile - any day!

dmerrick• 13 years ago

As a minor nitpick, the plural of cul-de-sac is 'culs-de-sac' (not 'cul-de-sacs' as appears in the title).

adrusi• 13 years ago

Where I live, Columbia MD, roads meander, have a hierarchical structure and there are A LOT of cul de sacs. It's a very walkable town, however, because it has walking paths that penetrate at least every other residential street, and provide direct walking routes to important sites, such as shopping plazas, schools and the mall.

It's not optimal, because commercial and residential area are zoned apart, so things aren't as close as they could be, but at least the routes between then are efficient.

I'm a 15 minute's walk from a grocery store, a mall, the elementary, middle and high schools that my house is districted to.

rkischuk• 13 years ago

Startup Founder. Married. 2 kids. We live in Mableton, and our office is in midtown. I know both areas well.

Cost of "home" in Midtown, $500k: http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/847-Myrtle-St-NE-Atlanta-G...

Cost of "home" in Mableton, $200k: http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/4582-Somerset-Rd-SW-Smyrna...

Midtown, local elementary school is a 2/10 on GreatSchools. Mableton, 7/10. If you want to live anywhere near midtown and have a decent public school, tack on another $150k and you lose most of the touted walkability.

It's strange to build Mableton up as the straw man for Atlanta suburbs since it's only 10 miles from midtown and a ~25 minute commute to several of Atlanta's job centers, and is probably more diverse both racially and economically than midtown. A place like Kennesaw, 20 miles out, 45+ minute commute, and less diverse would be a smarter target.

So much of these discussions seem to be single people arguing against places they've never lived, trying to convince people whose lifestyles they don't understand.

colinake2• 13 years ago

Atlantan here.

I lived in West Midtown for five years post-college. It's the epitome of hip re-urbanization and all that comes with it. I walked from my house to a local restaurant or shop exactly 0 times during those five years.

I moved to a cul-de-sac in a northern suburb six months ago. I'm 1 mile from 270,000 ft^2 of retail shopping and 1 mile from a walkable downtown with tons of shops and restaurants.

Do I drive 60 miles to and from work every day? Yes. I've also walked to restaurants and shops on numerous occasions. And as pointed out by rkischuk, I live in a house I couldn't begin to afford in West Midtown and we live in good school districts.

If you want to live in a small apartment in a high density area away from cul-de-sacs, good for you. Let me make my decisions based off what I've optimized my life for without demonizing me because we place different levels of importance on different items in life. I am happy spending $33/day to commute in exchange for a walkable area, larger house, better schools and more family-friendly environment.

runako3• 13 years ago

Atlantan also.

> happy spending $33/day to commute

Just curious, how do you factor in an hour+ of commuting per day? For me, that seems like it would far outweigh the costs of moving further away from the office. Time away from kids, time not working/sleeping, etc. Money can be earned or received in investments, but Founder time is a finite resource at the business. Obviously if you're married with kids there are a lot of factors that determine living situation, but in isolation it seems like a false economy.

It seems like just multiplying by your effective comp rate would make this commute far more expensive than living closer. For instance, if you bill at $100/hr, you've just told me your commute costs a minimum of $133/day (~$2,660/mo) [at $150/hr, that's $3,660/mo, etc.]. This should easily cover the price delta between e.g. midtown and 30 miles out. And that's before factoring in the other benefits that come along with not spending that much time on the road every day.

I can't make the math work, I'm wondering how others justify it.

colinake2• 13 years ago

My commute is about an hour a day.

There are many ways to turn this into productive time. Think. Listen to audiobooks/podcasts. Run through a few key work phone calls. Catch up with friends.

I really enjoy my commute.

I'll also point out that while that's theoretically $3660/mo if you aren't productive throughout any of the drive, that's not actually something many people can convert into cash. Many people spend time during the day with various items to unwind or provide a mental break from work. Working more is not always a goal. I don't want all my time to be spent working or sleeping.

You also have to account for where you spend your down time. I chose to live near friends and family in a place I can raise my kids. If I didn't live where I do, I'd be driving out here on the weekend and maybe once a week.

In addition, if you're living in town with kids and you want a quality education, you might be able to bill more $ a month (presuming you're building a business where you're selling your time, which I'm not and I don't want to do), but you're going to spend more money on a quality education or a house.

Everyone has different circumstances. My math works out for me. It might not for you.

Why cul-de-sacs are bad for your health

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