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Comment by allcentury | Hacker News Reader

I’d like to see a study like this for young kids. Anecdotally, I ran through the woods until I went to college and stress about the urban life I’m providing for my kids

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It might depend on what you mean by urban. Are there a lot of places your kids can walk to from your residence? I'm thinking of schools, parks, stores, etc. or are you in a place where they really have to be driven everywhere?

True. Older (in the U.S., pre-war) neighborhoods actually provide kids with far more opportunities for walking than newer, cul-de-sac based suburban neighborhoods. I keep wondering when we're going to stop allowing such immobilizing, isolating neighborhoods to be built.

The first time I looked at a city map of my home town and saw the division between the prewar streetcar suburbs, and the postwar neighborhoods, was a revelation. Before the war: everything is on a grid, and there are alleys for utilities and garages down every block. Easy to walk everywhere. After: no more alleys, cul-de-sacs everywhere, traffic funneled onto arterials, unwalkable.

Or at least start allowing pre war style neighborhoods to even be built again.

I don’t think it’s so much a matter of banning “bad” development as allowing all kinds.

I'd love to see cities put efforts into connecting those isolated cultures-de-sac neighborhoods with pedestrian and bike paths.

I can understand the desire to reduce through-traffic which sometimes comes with speeding or aggressive drivers. But walking and cycling to your friends house shouldn't mean going a mile out to the entrance of your neighborhood, down the busy highway, then a mile back in to their house when they were only half a mile away to begin with.

Cities charge a right-of-way fee, planning, and permitting process every time you connect to a public road. The county/city planning committee often requires new neighborhoods to cover the cost (often via HOA) of roads and their easements in the neighborhood. The end result is the neighborhood private planners have their hand forced to eliminate thru-traffic and minimize connections to arterials.

The county would basically have to do the opposite to change things; provide low-cost/low-overhead process for connecting to public road and pay neighborhoods/HOA for connecting to arterials to offload the traffick and provide thru-routes. Otherwise the public is just leaching off the private roads, and due to neighborhood planning requirements they usually can't charge a toll to get it back, so it gets designed to avoid that.

I'm suggesting not limiting foot and bike traffic just because we choose to limit car traffic. There are lots of routes between places in my town that would be much more direct, and safe, on a bike if there were small connecting paths between neighborhoods, including those built at different times by different developers, instead of being forced out onto the arterials.

Yeah, I think that's the part that I was suggesting should be "banned". All neighborhoods should connect with all adjacent neighborhoods via pedestrian or multiuse paths. And yes, that means across arterials as well -- either have an official surface crossing with appropriate traffic calming measures / pedestrian islands, or build a tunnel.

My neighborhood was platted in the late 50s, and it has what the kids call "secret sidewalks" that cut between the houses and connect the streets. It's the best of both worlds: Minimal car traffic, but easy to get around by walking. The secret sidewalks also radiate outward from the elementary school, approximately.

The power of desire paths.

> The secret sidewalks also radiate outward from the elementary school, approximately.

That is awesome. City planners should take note.

Also, I just realized that the tiny path I take to get into the next neighborhood only exists because of the elementary school there.

I don’t like cul-de-sacs in general but they can be walkable if there are shortcuts for pedestrians/cyclists and only cars has to follow a long way. You also need amenities in a walking distance. One can find such neighbourhoods in the UK.

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