The point isn't that streets are for pedestrians - the point is that the streets are not single-purpose. The street I lived on in Stockholm had a life cycle li

The point isn't that streets are for pedestrians - the point is that the streets are not single-purpose. The street I lived on in Stockholm had a life cycle like: - 6am - early people head to work - 8am - kids head to school - 10am - parents with baby strollers pass by on their way to cafes - 11am - first people show up for lunch at the square - 12pm-2pm - bulk lunch traffic - 4pm - people start coming back home - 5pm - people going shopping down the street - 6pm - shops start closing, shop keepers fiddling with their things - 7pm - dinner guests start passing by on their way to the restaurants - 11pm - last restaurant guests start heading home Compare that to the cul-de-sac I now live on in the US: - 6am - people start leaving, everyone drives - 10am - all cars are gone at this point - 5pm - people come home, all in cars The difference here has nothing to do with grid or windy streets, it has to do with mixed use buildings and streets built to be used for multiple purposes. The effect is quite substantial: In the Stockholm neighborhood, I always felt safe, always had neighbors going places on the street. In my US neighborhood, the streets are almost always empty. No one has a reason to come here for most of the day. This is why the local PD posts a patrol car at our dead-end cul-de-sac every Saturday night, because otherwise people come out here to smoke pot, since there's never anyone around