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Comment by markfenton | Hacker News Reader

There is a view held by some that they actually decrease safety by providing somewhere for undesirables to loiter, or a means of escape after committing crime, or simply attract more foot traffic to an area than a cul-de-sac therfore increasing the chance of opportunistic crime.

I suspect this is a situation where the benefits of the shortcuts to society may be greater than the possible downsides to the nearby homeowners, but more power lies with the local residents, or developers who want to sell homes. It would be interesting to know if there is any research on whether there is any effect on crime from this sort of development.

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>...or simply attract more foot traffic to an area than a cul-de-sac therfore increasing the chance of opportunistic crime.

I love this reasoning: make my own neighborhood so unpleasant to walk in that nobody will, not even me!

This is a consistent pattern in the US. Without freedom of association people would rather just not socialize at all.

We have a creek trail at the end of our cul-de-sac, and it definitely has been used by people who walk up and down neighborhoods to check for open cars. It's especially useful in the day of home security cameras - people that drive tend to get their license plate lifted.

That said, I wouldn't trade it for that kinda "safety". I'd rather just lock my car or not leave valuables in it. Being able to take my kids for a walk and actually do something without a car is more valuable.

I don't have a trail at the end of my dead end (Through oddities of lot sizes, I don't live on a cul-de-sac so much as, we need to put a road here so one guy can access his property.)

People have still come and looked through my car despite the clear lack of escape route.

I bet you're right on what's driving this. The last two houses I have lived in are very close to each other, but one is on a quiet culdesac while the other is on a through street convenient for foot traffic. There is definitely a small but noticeable difference in the amount of crime and sketchy behavior between the two. This bums me out though, because I would much rather live in a more walkable community, even with the tradeoffs. Unfortunately many Americans feel differently.

This strikes me as a post-hoc justification. Seems more likely to me that they just didn't think of it, or don't care enough to actually implement it.

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