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Did I miss something? I don't see anywhere where it "debunks" anything. It has some talk about traffic accidents when you travel outside of a cul-de-sac, but d

Did I miss something? I don't see anywhere where it "debunks" anything. It has some talk about traffic accidents when you travel outside of a cul-de-sac, but doesn't talk about the increased safety inside (especially for say children who play in the area), doesn't talk about crime rates, or any of the reasons people move into suburban areas. It throws in some off the cuff comment about being more connected, but doesn't say why that would be true in a more densely populated grid layout (as opposed to knowing your neighbor more in the the suburbs). The article seems really poor actually, rushed to meet a deadline.

matthewowen 10y ago
Those are fair comments about this article. If you're generally interested in answers to the questions you raise, you might enjoy reading Jane Jacobs' The Death and Life of Great American Cities. (https://www.amazon.com/Death-Life-Great-American-Cities/dp/067974195X https://www.amazon.com/Death-Life-Great-American-Cities/dp/0...)
twelvechairs 10y ago
Also 'paid by the word journalism' - so many words such little content. Not sure why citylab is so heavily linked on hn. There are better urban development sites to read. Just today marketurbanism.com had a great article on Houstons alternatives to simple zoning. A really important contemporary example on a really important current issue
jacobolus 10y ago
Suburbs full of cul-de-sacs are terrible places to grow up for children after the age of about 6. They’re invariably designed to be incredibly pedestrian-hostile, and usually also bicycle-hostile, so if you don’t drive a car, you either need to have your parents drive you everywhere, or you need to have every possible destination within a couple blocks. Such an environment is stifling of children’s independence and community interaction.
- joelmichael 10y ago
  When I was a kid I rode a bicycle.
  - AnimalMuppet 10y ago
    I think the difference is, in a suburb a kid can safely ride a bicycle. That's great, if your goal is to ride. If your goal is to go to somewhere specific (movie theater? soccer game? swimming pool?), kid probably needs a ride in a car, because those places aren't within biking distance for a kid.
danans 10y ago
> doesn't talk about crime rates While the article may have issues, I've not seen a compelling argument explaining lower suburban crime rates by their lower density instead of the huge unaddressed socioeconomic problems that in part drove suburbanization.
- JBReefer 10y ago
  Yeah, suburbanization is a symptom of a failure of the social contract - people fleeing from terrible schools, crime, racial division, etc. "A nice place to raise children" is a fairly transparent way of saying "a neighborhood with no black people," and they're not wrong: due to structural racism and America's unwillingness to deal with it's core issues, the white middle class really doesn't have another choice. Are you going to pay 1 million+ to live on the Upper East Side, which has good schools? You can't afford that on 75k a year. You're going to move to PA and talk about how it's "for the yard."
  - ravenstine 10y ago
    Here we go again. When you say things like that, a casual reader might think you're implying that there are next to no middle class black people or, worse, that people are intentionally avoiding black people and not typical inner city crime. A neighborhood with no black people? Bollocks. Unless you can demonstrate struck Ural racism, as opposed to just stating it, your entire second paragraph seems specious.
    - ravenstine 10y ago
      *structural

matthewowen 10y ago

Those are fair comments about this article. If you're generally interested in answers to the questions you raise, you might enjoy reading Jane Jacobs' The Death and Life of Great American Cities. (https://www.amazon.com/Death-Life-Great-American-Cities/dp/067974195X https://www.amazon.com/Death-Life-Great-American-Cities/dp/0...)

twelvechairs 10y ago

Also 'paid by the word journalism' - so many words such little content. Not sure why citylab is so heavily linked on hn. There are better urban development sites to read. Just today marketurbanism.com had a great article on Houstons alternatives to simple zoning. A really important contemporary example on a really important current issue

jacobolus 10y ago

Suburbs full of cul-de-sacs are terrible places to grow up for children after the age of about 6. They’re invariably designed to be incredibly pedestrian-hostile, and usually also bicycle-hostile, so if you don’t drive a car, you either need to have your parents drive you everywhere, or you need to have every possible destination within a couple blocks. Such an environment is stifling of children’s independence and community interaction.

joelmichael 10y ago
When I was a kid I rode a bicycle.
- AnimalMuppet 10y ago
  I think the difference is, in a suburb a kid can safely ride a bicycle. That's great, if your goal is to ride. If your goal is to go to somewhere specific (movie theater? soccer game? swimming pool?), kid probably needs a ride in a car, because those places aren't within biking distance for a kid.

danans 10y ago

> doesn't talk about crime rates While the article may have issues, I've not seen a compelling argument explaining lower suburban crime rates by their lower density instead of the huge unaddressed socioeconomic problems that in part drove suburbanization.

JBReefer 10y ago
Yeah, suburbanization is a symptom of a failure of the social contract - people fleeing from terrible schools, crime, racial division, etc. "A nice place to raise children" is a fairly transparent way of saying "a neighborhood with no black people," and they're not wrong: due to structural racism and America's unwillingness to deal with it's core issues, the white middle class really doesn't have another choice. Are you going to pay 1 million+ to live on the Upper East Side, which has good schools? You can't afford that on 75k a year. You're going to move to PA and talk about how it's "for the yard."
- ravenstine 10y ago
  Here we go again. When you say things like that, a casual reader might think you're implying that there are next to no middle class black people or, worse, that people are intentionally avoiding black people and not typical inner city crime. A neighborhood with no black people? Bollocks. Unless you can demonstrate struck Ural racism, as opposed to just stating it, your entire second paragraph seems specious.
  - ravenstine 10y ago
    *structural