Aren't these orthogonal concerns, mostly? There is no reason you need cul-de-sacs in order to have large lots. In fact, it's often easier to have more usable s

Aren't these orthogonal concerns, mostly? There is no reason you need cul-de-sacs in order to have large lots. In fact, it's often easier to have more usable space in a grid system because you aren't dealing with as many curves. The suburbs have more space because they are the suburbs, not because they have cul-de-sacs. To your second point, suburbs don't suddenly become 'city grids' with all the traffic that implies just because they use a grid layout. Yes, traffic will almost certainly be higher in front of your house if you are not in a cul-de-sac, but that doesn't mean it's unsafe for kids to play there. There are a lot of quiet suburban streets, built on a grid, and kids definitely play in them. The article makes the point that grids actually decrease the amount of traffic, and its speed. It seems likely that the variation of traffic conditions is much lower; every street has some traffic, but no streets have lots of traffic. Grids promote walking and cycling, and are potentially serviced by public transport better (likely because they weren't designed car-first). So yes, there are benefits to living in a cul-de-sac, but I would think most of those benefits come from living in a suburb in the first place. The cul-de-sacs, as opposed to a grid system, just make suburbs a worse place to live overall.