Suburban living dying off as people migrate to the cities again

[jakeroot]

Ah yes, when I want absolute proof of something road related, nothing is better than an editorial written by a licensed landscape architect.

Do you believe or not believe what he wrote? I thought it was bullshit until I visited England.

EDIT: That link was the very first link I saw in Google. I'm sure I could fine a more "credible" source if I tried just a smidge harder.

[Brandon]

Jake, IMHO, it's a terrible design.  I believe a grid with some radial boulevards is a better answer.  Grids can be followed by anyone, pedestrian or vehicle (including motorcycles & bicycles) better than that mess.  it's why I choose not to live in a blobbly suburb.

[vdeane]

Some of us don't like the "slow down traffic" fad.  And my morning commute becomes much more enjoyable once I get on the Northway.  Evening too, just not as much due to a couple of merges (and on Thurs/Fri in the summer, Raceway traffic heading to Saratoga).

[jakeroot]

Here's how he defends the design (this is a direct copy/paste from his website...if you are interested in reading the original article, click here):

The grid-diss crew does have one point. Too much can get boring. Like this:



This is boring.

The problem with a setup like this is that it's fractal; *everything* is a grid, and it's the same grid. The local street grid looks like the collector/arterial grid at a smaller scale, which looks like the major arterial grid at a smaller scale, which looks like the state highway network at smaller scale.

What the grid *is* perfect for, however, is slicing up tracts of land that have already been cut by through-streets, or by land boundaries that will *become* through-streets (like it was done back in the day).

For example:



Here's a through street network. Predominant commuter traffic flows are northeast morning inbound, southwest afternoon outbound. Radial streets dump into a "mixing bowl" , a big oval with a park in the center. Big one-way circles can end up with high speeds and aren't always ped-friendly, so this one's laid out with a bi-directional roadway and smaller roundabouts at each intersection. (Brits call this a "magic roundabout".)

The east-west street that skirts the park is laid out as your basic solid storefront commercial strip; wide sidewalks, parallel parking, Frequent Bus connecting into other parts of the area.

What's left over are a bunch of irregular, moderately-sized parcels. As a developer, how are you going to divvy this up? Loops and lollipops, with ample reverse frontage, gives you something like this:



Meh. Even with a few ped cut-through sidewalks the connectivity isn't all that great. And it's *really* hard to look at this street pattern and envision any kind of retail on that east-west street other than gas stations, fast food, etcetera. 60-foot square buildings on 150-foot square lots.

But what if you cut it up with a grid?



Not boring at all! Local streets are parallel to adjacent through streets, but the grids don't really line up. There's no clear route for through traffic. Vistas are defined. Stand on any local street and you've got the same intimate feel as a loopy neighborhood. Except... it's porous. You can walk off in any direction and generally keep going, even if you have to zig a little. It's easy to look at that same east-west street and envision a nice retail district, cars parked on the street, bikes locked to racks, people randomly walking about, maybe some guy handing out LaRouche pamphlets. In other words, Urbanity.

A neighborhood like this, you can lay it out with single-family homes and sidewalk-fronting strip centers. Then later after it's filled in, landowners can replace one-story commerce with mixed-use blocks, or mid-rise office. They can demo smaller houses and put in a couple townhomes or maybe a few condos on the lot. It's not an architectural vision, to be forever preserved through rigid design codes. Rather, it's designed for future redevelopment. You can make a *city* out of grids like this.

And indeed, we have.

There are a whole lotta really nice neighborhoods where irregular grids were matched to streets at different angles. They're in Houston. Dallas. Denver. San Diego and San Francisco, New York and Los Angeles, Seattle, Miami, Atlanta, D.C., Chicagoland.

These places have staying power. They've been able to support redevelopment at higher densities than they were originally built out at. (Most suburban "loops and lollipops"  networks would break down if you increased the density much beyond the original plan.) What's more, most of these places have come back after suffering some of the inner city decline that characterized the 60′s and 70′s.

This is *the* way to build cities. And it's not just an urbanist thing. This pattern is developer-friendly. You get some odd-shaped lots, but you get a lot of frontage, much better than cul-de-sacs or the inside of corners. That means you get the same backyard depth in a shallower lot, you can pack more houses into a given area. If you've got front-loading garages, frontage translates to curb appeal, since more of the front facade is house instead of garage door. 300′ sewer runs under arrow-straight streets require a lot fewer manholes than trying to maintain standard offsets around constant S-curves. I've done utilities PS&E for both setups, the grid almost always wins on cost.

But hey, some guys in the 30′s thought residential streets should be all curvy. They wrote it into fed mortgage standards. Those standards got incorporated into model zoning ordinances nationwide, and eventually became the received wisdom of developers and consultant civils. Now you lay out a grid with a bunch of different angles and it's an event, everyone wants to front like it's some sort of architectural masterstroke and it has all the usual hype attached to it that you get with big-name architects.

Except it's not. It's really simple. It's something everybody used to do, and I don't think it'd be too hard to teach them again. We just have to legalize it.

Some of us don't like the "slow down traffic" fad.  And my morning commute becomes much more enjoyable once I get on the Northway.  Evening too, just not as much due to a couple of merges (and on Thurs/Fri in the summer, Raceway traffic heading to Saratoga).

I love to speed...on the freeway. High-speed traffic is not meant for a residential/commercial/generally busy area.

If you build a town where the roads are thin, people will not want to go fast. If you give people too much assurance that nothing can go wrong, something will inevitably go wrong. This theory is true when traffic signals are observed. People will often take the green for granted and pay little attention to the cross street...this is why roundabouts work so well.

If we don't want people to use their phone, make them want to pay attention to the road. A thin little road where the perceived danger is high would more than likely produce less accidents than a wider road.

[Scott5114]

The problem is when you live in the middle of that tangled morass of jumbled roads and you're trying to get to the freeway. That looks like a pain in the ass to have to traverse.

Ruling out a grid just because it's "boring" is sheer pigheadedness. Most of America's most urban cities–Manhattan, Washington, Chicago–use a grid. Grids work well for navigational purposes, ensuring efficient land use, and for moving traffic, and work well for pedestrians.* You can have an "interesting" city within a grid–there's nothing saying you can't lay out restaurants, office buildings, apartments, shopping centers, or kitchen sinks in a grid layout. Nobody has ever said that Manhattan is boring.

Trying to make a driver perceive danger–are you out of your mind? When I perceive danger as I'm driving, my adrenaline spikes and I drive worse, not better. I have been involved in two car accidents since I've been driving, and both were in the same work zone with a dangerous merge, where the danger of traffic from behind me distracted me from what traffic was doing ahead of me, and I rear-ended someone. After the second accident I just avoided the area as much as possible, which is what I would do if I felt threatened by deliberate road geometry. And if all the roads in town were like that, I would probably avoid the place as much as possible.

* Fun fact about grids...in Oklahoma City, the walkable/transit/urbanization folk are actually pushing a plan to restore the street grid where it was disrupted by the now-demolished old I-40 Crosstown. Seems they feel it's a better, more walkable/urban/whatever option than ODOT's preferred alternative, which is a boulevard that follows the old ROW.

[jakeroot]

The problem is when you live in the middle of that tangled morass of jumbled roads and you're trying to get to the freeway. That looks like a pain in the ass to have to traverse.

When I visited England, I used a GPS. I would have been hopelessly lost without it. Likewise, visitors to our country would too be hopelessly lost without a GPS. Just because a city has a grid layout doesn't make it easy to traverse. Take Top Gear (UK's) example when they attempted to get from Brooklyn to near Columbus Circle. There was of course some film trickery, but they were blown away by the concept of naming roads with numbers. I don't think too many other countries do this (even if roads are laid out as grids).

Ruling out a grid just because it's "boring" is sheer pigheadedness. Most of America's most urban cities–Manhattan, Washington, Chicago–use a grid. Grids work well for navigational purposes, ensuring efficient land use, and for moving traffic, and work well for pedestrians.* You can have an "interesting" city within a grid–there's nothing saying you can't lay out restaurants, office buildings, apartments, shopping centers, or kitchen sinks in a grid layout. Nobody has ever said that Manhattan is boring.

I would agree...it's very stubborn. Grids are incredibly good at what they do. Forgoing the use of grids would be a monumental mistake.

However, consider this: What if every city was a grid layout? Seeing Kansas City would be like seeing Saint Louis or Milwaukee or Austin. For a website so focused on roads, I would expect that you lot would be interested in a good drive...we would never have that if all cities were grids (IMO).

Trying to make a driver perceive danger–are you out of your mind? When I perceive danger as I'm driving, my adrenaline spikes and I drive worse, not better. I have been involved in two car accidents since I've been driving, and both were in the same work zone with a dangerous merge, where the danger of traffic from behind me distracted me from what traffic was doing ahead of me, and I rear-ended someone. After the second accident I just avoided the area as much as possible, which is what I would do if I felt threatened by deliberate road geometry. And if all the roads in town were like that, I would probably avoid the place as much as possible.

* Fun fact about grids...in Oklahoma City, the walkable/transit/urbanization folk are actually pushing a plan to restore the street grid where it was disrupted by the now-demolished old I-40 Crosstown. Seems they feel it's a better, more walkable/urban/whatever option than ODOT's preferred alternative, which is a boulevard that follows the old ROW.

I too would re-connect the grid. I think they're a tad boring, but I won't argue against their effectiveness. In this case, not reconnecting the grid would cause flow issues. Which would you rather see?

Regarding perceived danger; the approach seems ass-backwards, I understand that. No one here will ever agree with me that thinner roads are safer. I don't expect you all to. I'll have to wait until a study is done on it. For now, I just want roads that make people want to pay attention. How would you go about doing that?

[english si]

No one here will ever agree with me that thinner roads are safer.

I will

[jakeroot]

No one here will ever agree with me that thinner roads are safer.

I will

Thank you for the support Si.


iPhone

[hbelkins]

Replace "thin" or "thinner" with a more accurate description, "narrow" or "narrower," and see how much agreement you get.

I never tell anyone, "that road is really thin." I say, "that road is really narrow."

[DTComposer]

However, consider this: What if every city was a grid layout? Seeing Kansas City would be like seeing Saint Louis or Milwaukee or Austin.

But, as mentioned above, many of the U.S.'s most iconic cities are indeed grid layouts. What makes a city unlike another city is the architecture, the culture, the history, the citizens themselves, the climate, the topography, the industry, etc. In fact, one could argue that the most likely candidates for "sameness" (i.e., seeing city A is just like seeing city B) would be the suburbs, which often eschew grid layouts, unlike central cities.

[Zeffy]

Grid planned cities are the best cities IMO. I have an extreme dislike for how European cities are planned in a "web" as they call it compared to the grids over here. Unfortunately for me, the "grid" concept is completely foreign to Hillsborough as well as a large amount of "Townships" in New Jersey, and I can imagine in many other places as well.

[maplestar]

Ah yes, when I want absolute proof of something road related, nothing is better than an editorial written by a licensed landscape architect.

Ah yes, and when I want argument worth reading, nothing is better than a criticism of a proponent's qualifications rather than the content of their argument.

[kkt]

It blows my mind that middle class society chose inferior housing, streets, urban design, and ultimately an inferior way of life due to personal insecurities over living with people different than themselves (due to race) in the early to mid 1960's.

How much of it was due to self-segregation, and how much of it was due to the atrocious nature of schools in the cities? Or forced busing which took kids out of their neighborhood schools and made them ride across town to be enrolled in schools that may not have been as good as the ones closer to their homes?

I think you're both missing the most important factor in the growth of suburbs.  They were much cheaper.  In many suburbs you could buy a 1/4 acre lot with a 2000 sq. foot house for less than you'd pay for a lot and house half the size in the nearby city.

Some additional factors:

Until the 1960s civil rights era, the FHA would not underwrite mortgages in racially mixed areas, or in dominantly African-American areas, so that meant suburbs in most cases.

Lots of the older housing stock in the cities was in poor shape, due to neglect during the depression and WW II.

There just wasn't enough housing in the cities for all the new households springing up.  Huge numbers of young men were living with mom & dad before WW II because they were teens or couldn't get a job because of the depression.  Then they were in the armed forces during WW II.  Then within a few years in the late 1940s they all came home, in their mid to late 20s, and weren't crazy about living with mom & dad again.

[kkt]

No one here will ever agree with me that thinner roads are safer.

I will

If by "safer" you mean "fewer fatalities", I'll agree.  If you mean "fewer accidents", I'm skeptical and would like to see research.

[jakeroot]

However, consider this: What if every city was a grid layout? Seeing Kansas City would be like seeing Saint Louis or Milwaukee or Austin.

But, as mentioned above, many of the U.S.'s most iconic cities are indeed grid layouts. What makes a city unlike another city is the architecture, the culture, the history, the citizens themselves, the climate, the topography, the industry, etc. In fact, one could argue that the most likely candidates for "sameness" (i.e., seeing city A is just like seeing city B) would be the suburbs, which often eschew grid layouts, unlike central cities.

I agree with everything you've said. Downtown Seattle is not like downtown San Francisco which is not like Downtown Vancouver which is not like Downtown Calgary. Each city has their own flavor and style, which its residents and visitors like.

What I'm saying is, you can have a city that succeeds culturally without a grid layout. Boston is a great example of this.

Replace "thin" or "thinner" with a more accurate description, "narrow" or "narrower," and see how much agreement you get.

I never tell anyone, "that road is really thin." I say, "that road is really narrow."

I've used "narrow" to describe permanent fixtures (e.g. the narrow canyon) but used "thin" to describe less-than-permanent objects (e.g. the thin leaf). You could argue that roads are a permanent fixture, but they are also sometimes temporary. As one website that I read put it, "it's best just to decide idiomatically".

I only used thin because of recent proposals in my area to build more "thin streets". But I do like "narrow streets". Not sure if I prefer one to the other just yet.

[PHLBOS]

What I'm saying is, you can have a city that succeeds culturally without a grid layout. Boston (excluding the Back Bay section) is a great example of this.

FTFY.

[jakeroot]

What I'm saying is, you can have a city that succeeds culturally without a grid layout. Boston (excluding the Back Bay section) is a great example of this.

FTFY.

I was this close to saying exactly that, down to the freakin' italics.

[english si]

I have an extreme dislike for how European cities are "planned" in a "web" as they call it compared to the grids over here.

FIFY...

In Europe we didn't have a near-blank slate, and had to deal with an evolved street pattern (and later, existing buildings), rather than one intelligently designed around grids...

In Europe, there are loads of grids in rebuilt city centres, in post-Industrial revolution estates to serve the new industrial workers, etc. Though the suburbs, while car-centric, never really wanted fast driving outside houses, so residential roads aren't going to be more than, say, a mile in a straight line, come the 20s and 30s, they won't be designed as effective rat runs, etc. Then come the 90s (and a bit before), the vogue was for lots of cul-de-sacs, corners, etc, so that once you are in the housing estate, you won't physically be able to drive at 20mph.

Compare: 80s Residential suburbia in a new town, 90s Residential suburbia in same new town

[jeffandnicole]

The problem is when you live in the middle of that tangled morass of jumbled roads and you're trying to get to the freeway. That looks like a pain in the ass to have to traverse.

When I visited England, I used a GPS. I would have been hopelessly lost without it. Likewise, visitors to our country would too be hopelessly lost without a GPS. Just because a city has a grid layout doesn't make it easy to traverse.

Ah, a quote from a youngin'!

Believe it or not, GPS units has only been in wide-spread use for a number of years, maybe a decade at best.  Before 2005, no one traveled anywhere people traveled all over the world, and were able to guide themselves using directions on the internet, paper maps, the North Star, etc.  If someone is hopelessly lost without a GPS, chances are they are probably barely finding their way with a GPS. 

Numerous stories have been written of people blaming their GPS units getting them stuck on railroad tricks, in mud, in rivers, etc.  Many will try to use a GPS to get them around traffic congestion, but what wants up happening is the GPS keeps recalculating to get the motorist back to the congested highway.  If someone has a least a little knowledge of the roads in the area, a GPS can be a helpful tool.  For too many people, a GPS is as essential as a beating heart.

The grid-diss crew does have one point. Too much can get boring. Like this:



This is boring.

The biggest mistake in this is the viewpoint that is being utilized.  When driving, my line-of-sight is about 4 feet off the ground, not 5,000 feet in the air.  When I take walks around my neighborhood, we have some straight stretches of road, and some curved roads.  What's boring is seeing the same sights over and over again.  I vary my walks to different streets, different neighborhoods. 

What's interesting is while the anti-road crowd shows an aerial view of a 'boring' road, an aerial view of an 'exciting' layout isn't used.  Yet, we are told these layouts exist. Why not use a view of a method that supposedly works?  Because overall, any aerial view is boring.  And when on the ground, a spider-type layout is confusing. 

If the goal is to try to reduce travel, you have to have the right population and like-minded people.  I can't tell you how many road meetings I've been to where numerous people come out to try to derail or eliminate a road project.  They whine people need to walk, bike, carpool and take mass-transit. Then after the meeting, watch as all those people get into their own vehicles and drive away, even though they all live nearby in the same area. 

To add to that...almost no one likes people speeding by their house.  But if everyone thought about that on the roads, they wouldn't speed by other people's houses either.  To add to that, when surveys are done direct with motorists, some people will claim they never or rarely speed, and those that do tend to minimize their speeding.  But automated surveys using sensors in the ground or hidden radar will almost always reveal more motorists are speeding, and at speeds higher than what they claim they are driving.

Ah yes, when I want absolute proof of something road related, nothing is better than an editorial written by a licensed landscape architect.

Ah yes, and when I want argument worth reading, nothing is better than a criticism of a proponent's qualifications rather than the content of their argument.

Because it was purely opinion without facts.  Take the following:

"Wider lanes at 12 feet width and greater are only safer on high-speed roads and interstates"

"Beach Road is clearly dangerous by design, as many of Norwalk's roads are"

Where are the stats to back that up?  There are none.   Maybe in the report he referenced there are stats and reasonings as to specific circumstances, but anytime words such as "Only" and "clearly dangerous" are used, then one has to consider how much fact is contained in the writer's view, and how much of it is opinion.

The letter writer felt that it was important enough to have the landscape architect byline attached to his letter.  Why?  It almost screams out "We need to calm traffic, and when you do that, I think some planters and brickwork will look nice to help reduce traffic speeds, and I'm the perfect person to design and build that for you!"

[jakeroot]

Compare: 80s Residential suburbia in a new town, 90s Residential suburbia in same new town

I knew that was Milton Keynes before I zoomed out...no where in England are there A) that many roundabouts, or B) that much grid (surrounding the housing estates, at least).

[agentsteel53]

If I was laying out a town, it would look something like this:

- thin roads to discourage high-speeds, thus encouraging walk-ability
- roundabouts to slow traffic (in tandem with above)
- mid-to-high density residential (closely spaced 2-3 floor homes)
- no freeways (bypass roads are fine).
- no right turn on red -- not very friendly for pedestrians

Remind me never to live in your town.

add moron tourists and you've got San Francisco.  an excellent city; but pure hell to drive in.

[jakeroot]

If I was laying out a town, it would look something like this:

- thin roads to discourage high-speeds, thus encouraging walk-ability
- roundabouts to slow traffic (in tandem with above)
- mid-to-high density residential (closely spaced 2-3 floor homes)
- no freeways (bypass roads are fine).
- no right turn on red -- not very friendly for pedestrians

Remind me never to live in your town.

add moron tourists and you've got San Francisco.  an excellent city; but pure hell to drive in.

Agreed...very hellish. But it's fun especially if you like crowds (which I do). If being a PE fails me, taxi driver is my second choice.

[Scott5114]

However, consider this: What if every city was a grid layout? Seeing Kansas City would be like seeing Saint Louis or Milwaukee or Austin.

But, as mentioned above, many of the U.S.'s most iconic cities are indeed grid layouts. What makes a city unlike another city is the architecture, the culture, the history, the citizens themselves, the climate, the topography, the industry, etc. In fact, one could argue that the most likely candidates for "sameness" (i.e., seeing city A is just like seeing city B) would be the suburbs, which often eschew grid layouts, unlike central cities.

I agree with everything you've said. Downtown Seattle is not like downtown San Francisco which is not like Downtown Vancouver which is not like Downtown Calgary. Each city has their own flavor and style, which its residents and visitors like.

What I'm saying is, you can have a city that succeeds culturally without a grid layout. Boston is a great example of this.

You are undermining your own argument here.

You can have a culturally interesting and unique city with or without a grid. If that's the case, why not go with a grid to make it easier to get to the culture spots and back home again?

If people are not paying attention to the road, that is not the DOT/planning authority's remit. Correcting that behavior is the duty of law enforcement.

[The Nature Boy]

This is just a random observation (somewhat related to the original topic but not related to the current line of conversation):

Didn't the Baby Boomers (particularly the younger ones) also move to urban areas when they were younger and single? You certainly didn't see a lot of single people living in suburbia in the 1980s. But of course people grew up, had kids and moved to the suburbs. It just seems like the current generation is repeating what the Boomers did and everyone is reacting quickly to call it some kind of new trend. Give it 20 years and my generation will be in suburbia too.

[PHLBOS]

Didn't the Baby Boomers (particularly the younger ones) also move to urban areas when they were younger and single? You certainly didn't see a lot of single people living in suburbia in the 1980s. But of course people grew up, had kids and moved to the suburbs. It just seems like the current generation is repeating what the Boomers did and everyone is reacting quickly to call it some kind of new trend. Give it 20 years and my generation will be in suburbia too.

Bingo! Somebody finally brings up this point! 

Some of my younger co-workers that currently live in the city (Philadelphia) have already stated that they will likely move to the suburbs once they start having kids.