The cul-de-sac: great for kids, bad for everyone else

Bad planning

Roha Teferra, Jun 27, 11.

For little kids, cul-de-sacs can be great, but they do have some real quantifiable design flaws, reports Roman Mars, of San Francisco radio show 99% Invisible:

When people critique cul-de-sacs, a lot of the time, they’re actually critiquing the suburbs more generally. The cul-de-sac has become sort of like the mascot of the suburbs - like if suburbia had a flag, it would have a picture of a cul-de-sac on it…..

The cul-de-sac, which translates “bottom of bag” in French, has no connectivity to the surrounding neighborhood and can be expensive to maintain. A little kid, on the other hand, considers it a wonderful place to play without the distraction of many cars. Mars later reports that suburban planning is “organized around the needs of 5 year-olds.”

The story later discusses suburban planning from a historical perspective. Before World War II, suburban planning was considered anti-grid planning, and involved incorporating the natural landscape of the environment into the plan of the neighborhood, but still allowed connectivity. Post World War II, the cul-de-sac became a key component of suburban planning, introducing these design flaws.Recently, the Virginia government decided to make changes to these design flaws by banning cul-de-sacs in all future developments.