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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 n

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.

dasil003 13y ago
> 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".
- sliverstorm 13y ago
  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.
- mason240 13y ago
  >Wow, talk about putting words in his mouth. You're right, he should have said "racism" and tackled potatolicious's bullshit head on and not been so polite.
potatolicious 13y ago
There a dramatic amount of understatement here. "A little less walkable" is untrue. Meandering suburban layouts are dramatically less walkable - we're not talking about even the same order of magnitude. Here's a commonly cited diagram of the difference in walkability between a grid layout and a sprawl-suburb. Both of these are real places, not hypothetical illustrations: http://hbr.org/hb/article_assets/hbr/1005/F1005B_A_lg.gif http://hbr.org/hb/article_assets/hbr/1005/F1005B_A_lg.gif "A little less" is an understatement bordering on the edge of untruth. There used to be a better high-res version of this map that I can't find anymore - the right side is Ballard, Seattle, I've forgotten where the left side is (IIRC Dallas). The blue is the area reachable by walk from the central starting point in a given time (IIRC 10 minutes at average pace). Note that Ballard is far from a "perfect grid" layout - there is still ample delineation between arterials and side streets. The grid is also lightly broken up every few blocks to prevent people from speeding right on through, while not making pedestrians go out of the way in the wrong direction. The notion that sprawl-type neighborhoods are somehow safer for pedestrians (and conversely, grid-style layouts are more dangerous) also doesn't bear out in reality. Dallas, TX (a particularly famously suburban city) has a pedestrian fatality rate of 1.7 per 100K pop. NYC, the mother of all grid layouts (a perfect grid, even), clocks in at 1.8 per 100K. There's nothing to suggest grid layouts (perfect or otherwise) are intrinsically more dangerous to pedestrians. The whole traffic business also doesn't jive: > "Reduce through-traffic- not because "outsiders are undesirable" but because through-traffic is noisy" Except non-sprawl suburbs with grid layouts have been restricting through-traffic for decades. Throw down a few of these: http://www.nowtopians.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/mosaic-traffic-circle_2759.jpg http://www.nowtopians.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/mosaic-... They're wonderful and keep side streets from becoming arterial relief valves, while allowing you all the walkability and accessibility of grid-based layouts. No chokepoints, no gates, no driver blasting his way through trying to find a shortcut to work. They also do a great job of curbing drunk drivers, who are more likely to get beached up on one of these than in the side of a house. They look pretty good too: http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8002/7132823357_600fba9ee3_z.jpg http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8002/7132823357_600fba9ee3_z.j... Some people even make them into little parklets, though I'm not sure if I'd want to hang out there: http://www.vancourier.com/polopoly_fs/1.577052.1376349174!/fileImage/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/landscape_563/img-0-8765159-jpg.jpg http://www.vancourier.com/polopoly_fs/1.577052.1376349174!/f... People who live in these neighborhoods aren't idiots. This isn't a win-lose scenario - this isn't pedestrians vs. safety vs. noise. We can have our cake and eat it too, in fact many neighborhoods around the country do. Besides the "uniformity" thing, there's really nothing that the sprawl-type suburb solves that hasn't already been solved in non-sprawl suburban developments. You can live in a house with a yard with a BBQ with a deck with a garage. You can have space for all your stuff. You can still walk to the grocery store. You can still save money and take the bus to work without it being a giant pain in the ass. You can still have nice parks nearby and your kids won't go to school in a skyscraper. The opposite of the sprawling suburb isn't towers full of people stacked on top of one another, it's another type of suburb altogether.
paul_f 13y ago
This article discusses suburban Atlanta so it might be worth noting that much of Atlanta is quite hilly. It would be quite difficult to build neighborhoods on a grid system. By using cul-de-sacs and other winding streets, you can better fit the geography.
- Stronico 13y ago
  I was just going to say this - Also worth nothing is the fact that Atlanta sits on a hunk of very uneven granite and has very strange drainage patterns.

dasil003 13y ago

> 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".

sliverstorm 13y ago
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.
mason240 13y ago
>Wow, talk about putting words in his mouth. You're right, he should have said "racism" and tackled potatolicious's bullshit head on and not been so polite.

potatolicious 13y ago

There a dramatic amount of understatement here. "A little less walkable" is untrue. Meandering suburban layouts are dramatically less walkable - we're not talking about even the same order of magnitude. Here's a commonly cited diagram of the difference in walkability between a grid layout and a sprawl-suburb. Both of these are real places, not hypothetical illustrations: http://hbr.org/hb/article_assets/hbr/1005/F1005B_A_lg.gif http://hbr.org/hb/article_assets/hbr/1005/F1005B_A_lg.gif "A little less" is an understatement bordering on the edge of untruth. There used to be a better high-res version of this map that I can't find anymore - the right side is Ballard, Seattle, I've forgotten where the left side is (IIRC Dallas). The blue is the area reachable by walk from the central starting point in a given time (IIRC 10 minutes at average pace). Note that Ballard is far from a "perfect grid" layout - there is still ample delineation between arterials and side streets. The grid is also lightly broken up every few blocks to prevent people from speeding right on through, while not making pedestrians go out of the way in the wrong direction. The notion that sprawl-type neighborhoods are somehow safer for pedestrians (and conversely, grid-style layouts are more dangerous) also doesn't bear out in reality. Dallas, TX (a particularly famously suburban city) has a pedestrian fatality rate of 1.7 per 100K pop. NYC, the mother of all grid layouts (a perfect grid, even), clocks in at 1.8 per 100K. There's nothing to suggest grid layouts (perfect or otherwise) are intrinsically more dangerous to pedestrians. The whole traffic business also doesn't jive: > "Reduce through-traffic- not because "outsiders are undesirable" but because through-traffic is noisy" Except non-sprawl suburbs with grid layouts have been restricting through-traffic for decades. Throw down a few of these: http://www.nowtopians.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/mosaic-traffic-circle_2759.jpg http://www.nowtopians.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/mosaic-... They're wonderful and keep side streets from becoming arterial relief valves, while allowing you all the walkability and accessibility of grid-based layouts. No chokepoints, no gates, no driver blasting his way through trying to find a shortcut to work. They also do a great job of curbing drunk drivers, who are more likely to get beached up on one of these than in the side of a house. They look pretty good too: http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8002/7132823357_600fba9ee3_z.jpg http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8002/7132823357_600fba9ee3_z.j... Some people even make them into little parklets, though I'm not sure if I'd want to hang out there: http://www.vancourier.com/polopoly_fs/1.577052.1376349174!/fileImage/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/landscape_563/img-0-8765159-jpg.jpg http://www.vancourier.com/polopoly_fs/1.577052.1376349174!/f... People who live in these neighborhoods aren't idiots. This isn't a win-lose scenario - this isn't pedestrians vs. safety vs. noise. We can have our cake and eat it too, in fact many neighborhoods around the country do. Besides the "uniformity" thing, there's really nothing that the sprawl-type suburb solves that hasn't already been solved in non-sprawl suburban developments. You can live in a house with a yard with a BBQ with a deck with a garage. You can have space for all your stuff. You can still walk to the grocery store. You can still save money and take the bus to work without it being a giant pain in the ass. You can still have nice parks nearby and your kids won't go to school in a skyscraper. The opposite of the sprawling suburb isn't towers full of people stacked on top of one another, it's another type of suburb altogether.

paul_f 13y ago

This article discusses suburban Atlanta so it might be worth noting that much of Atlanta is quite hilly. It would be quite difficult to build neighborhoods on a grid system. By using cul-de-sacs and other winding streets, you can better fit the geography.

Stronico 13y ago
I was just going to say this - Also worth nothing is the fact that Atlanta sits on a hunk of very uneven granite and has very strange drainage patterns.