Two recent articles have been making the internet rounds and apply to us here in the SCV. The first, from Emily Badger at Atlantic Magazine, is about the history of suburban development and the cul-de-sac and argues that it may be bad for us, bad for the environment, and bad for safety:
American ideas about how to live and build communities have changed dramatically over time. For decades, families fled the dense urban grid for newer types of neighborhoods that felt safer, more private, even pastoral. Through their research, Garrick and colleague Wesley Marshall are now making the argument that we got it all wrong: We’ve really been designing communities that make us drive more, make us less safe, keep us disconnected from one another, and that may even make us less healthy.
What’s great about the SCV is that we have examples of both patterns. Newhall, which was built up before and during World War 2, is largely grid patterned, with straight streets intersecting others forming real city blocks. Parts of Canyon Country are like this too.
Valencia, built 30 years after World War 2 -and with the benefit of a new nearby highway & cheap gasoline- was constructed with meandering low-volume streets, cul-de-sacs, and huge artery roads designed to carry all the traffic.
Newhall vs Valencia
Valencia is attractive for different reasons. The street your house is on is almost private, with few people driving on it unless they are your neighbors. And because it’s low traffic, the street becomes usable space to you and your family: I wonder how many kids of my generation got scrapes and bruises playing street hockey, basketball, or football in a cul-de-sac. But Valencia practically guarantees that you’ll be dependent on cars: the street layout makes transit just about impossible, requiring you to hike a mile or more to the nearest bus stop. It also makes us dependent on gigantic arterials, like the superhighway that is Newhall Ranch Road. And finally, if any new developments come to your area, or a small neighborhood road is opened as a cut-through; watch out! Angry people will beat down the doors at City Hall.
All this dependency on cars and big streets makes us less safe as a whole compared to street grids:
“A lot of people feel that they want to live in a cul-de-sac, they feel like it’s a safer place to be,” Marshall says. “The reality is yes, you’re safer – if you never leave your cul-de-sac. But if you actually move around town like a normal person, your town as a whole is much more dangerous.”
Of course stuffy academics arguing about statistical likelihood of getting in a serious car accident isn’t going to change consumer preference that much. That’s why you see in renderings of Newhall Ranch, Newhall Land continues the same patterns it established in Valencia: winding, confusing streets that ensure privacy but make you dependent on cars. The irony is that we live in such communities to isolate ourselves from car traffic, but these communities make us more dependent on cars over all.
Hey, while we’re questioning the underpinnings of American Suburbia, let’s not let the color beige off without comment. Beige is not just the dominant color in men’s closets in the SCV, it’s also the dominant color of development. And Folks in Irvine -practically a twin of Valencia but much larger- are sick of it and have decided to challenge conformity and are even souring on big-box retail:
As desirable as Irvine is, it’s safe to say the master-planned community isn’t exactly known for avant-garde architecture, something that became clear earlier this year in reader responses to stories about the launching of a city motto contest.
“Irvine: We Have 62 Different Words for Beige,” one commenter suggested.Yuck. Seriously why even bother with the fake windows on the "second" floor?
“Where Bland is in Demand,” another offered.
“Sixteen Zip Codes, Six Floor Plans,” a third said.
“Sorry, I Thought This Was My House,” yet another reader replied.
You get the idea.
…
“Uninterrupted blank wall surfaces should be avoided along all building facades,” the plans say, and design should discourage features that “hinder pedestrian activity, such as big box retail.”
No dominant architectural style? No big box retailers? In Irvine?
I think this is one area where the SCV is actually ahead of the curve. As John Boston once wrote, in the SCV, you can visit Tuscany, a New England fishing village (Bridgeport) and the Old West (Newhall) all in one day! It can’t be long now until we have some Asian-themed developments pop up.
But still, we could follow Irvine’s lead at least insofar as our shopping centers are concerned. More developments like The Patios, less like Valencia Marketplace & Golden Valley shopping center, ok?
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I love cul-de-sacs….:-)
I live in a Valencia cul-de-sac with walkways at the end that give you access to the paseos and the neighboring street so it is just fine for walking traffic. It is less than a 5 minute walk to the market and maybe 10 to the mall. The HOA available house colors range from variations of green, gold, blue, grey, brown, and yellow, etc. I like the HOA because I don’t have to worry about a car on my neighbor’s lawn or weeds waist high. I’ve lived on grid streets (witness to 2 speeding accidents outside my house) and cul-de-sacs (zero accidents) and I will take the cul-de-sac any day of the week.
“Worry” about weeds and cars?
Modern day stresses, I guess.
Yeah, some people are crazy to not want their nieghborhood full of unkept yards and cars on blocks on the front lawn. Especially at home-selling time, how selfish of them to want to have the area look nice. What’s up with that?
Hey, in my cul-de-sac HOA controlled neighborhood, our list of allowable house colors must be 40-50 long! Unfortunately, 30 of them are variations of beige, and 20 of them are variations of off-white. Guess they want to try to closely match the skin color of the majority of residents…
Our’s finally got updated about 10 years ago. It was only beige and brown tones, now some yellow, grey, and variations can be used.
When we first bought our home some 23 years ago, I had a friend coming over and was not familiar with the SCV. When I gave directions I told him our house was the last on the left and added it was brown. When he arrived he said good thing there was a number attached to the house, ’cause they’re all brown!
I have to say that as far as getting to know your neighbors, this type of housing is a lot better than in neighborhoods on streets where there is through traffic. I just remember people not getting outside as much, or kids playing outside as much (due to traffic and speed of traffic) when we lived in the SFV. Of course the exception was living in Lake View Terrace as a kid; that too was a cul-de-sac.
A day/night doesn’t go by with the sound of kids playing and neighbors are actually outside talking to each other; again, I love my neighborhood. (Mr. Rogers channeling through)
Agree wholeheartedly! I love my cul-de-sac. And you can thank me for the updated colors, you have no idea how hard that was to push through.
As hard as it was to get a signal put in by the city?
Oh, forgot….THANK YOU!
I came into the picture toward the end of the signal issue. I spoke to the city council and they said they had already decided to put one in. If I recall, they thought my street went through and was not a cul de sac so we had a way to get to a light.
The developers had originally planned on making your street connect to Singing Hills. The city decided that the paseo should go through instead. I also thought that this was to be a gated area, but again it was changed with the original plans.
We first got the light at singing hills, then when there were so many accidents happening at our entrance, we went to the city to put a light in. They didn’t want to and did the right turn only for awhile, to no avail. Then they tossed around the idea of having a ‘crosswalk’ light. It took about 2 years of going back and forth, before we got that light.
Just think, your street would have been very different today had the original plans been implemented.
Do you remember Clara that lived on Alegro? She and her family were the ‘first’ to live here in 1978. Her husband worked with Newhall Land. She had some great pictures of this area during the development stages. She gave me the scoop on what they had originally planned here.
This area was developed before there was a city. The County would have approved the plans to change street/paseo layouts.
I’m with lvogel. I lived behind Granary Square for six years, and loved being on a cul de sac. We knew all the neighbors and had a big street party for 4th of July. Every evening the kids were out in the street, riding their bikes and playing hockey.
I’m not buying that cul de sacs increase car use or the number of accidents. The paseos are very handy for making safe, straight paths through circuitous neighborhoods.
“I’m not buying that cul de sacs increase car use or the number of accidents. ”
Instinctively it does, and the evidence seems to bear it out:
“Marshall and Garrick took the same group of California cities and also examined all their minutely classified street networks for the amount of driving associated with them. On average, they found, people who live in more sparse, tree-like communities drive about 18 percent more than people who live in dense grids. And that’s a conservative calculation.”
I don’t think the authors were arguing that cul-de-sacs increase car accidents, just car use. And with increased car use comes increased risk of car accidents.
So, like I said, you and lvogel like cul-de-sacs because cars don’t drive on them. But by living on cul-de-sacs and unconnected streets, car use becomes more necessary.
And by design, those streets we do travel on are much faster and more dangerous.
I like cul-de-sacs just fine, and I’d much rather live on one than a cross street in the same neighborhood, but if I’m being honest, living away from so many things, where everything necessitates a car trip, introduces stresses that aren’t as immediately apparent.
However, I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: if all suburban hoods were designed like pre-Summit Valencia, the suburbs would suck much less.
Did they allow for income differences? People who live in “dense grids,” are more likely to be lower income, apartment dwellers, no? With fewer cars per capita.
Did the cul-de-sac dwellers have access to paseos in this study?
And when you say cul-de-sac dwellers drive more, is it more trips per day or greater distances per trip?
The “magic bullet” in your case is Ventura. I lived there for 8 years growing up, and there’s no place better to live. I would gladly move there tomorrow if I could.
That said, your neighborhood is not laid out in a traditional grid pattern. I googled your street and it is clear that it fits the pattern described by Atlantic Monthly as “Curvilinear Loop Designs and Beginning of Cul-De-Sacs, 1930-1950.” The businesses are all up on the main drags — Loma Vista, Telegraph, and Victoria.
No, they are not a magic bullet and you’re correct it doesn’t mean they are necessarily close knit, however if I were given the option of raising my family in the community I currently live in or a high density area with grid open traffic streets(which ironically since we are now empty nesters, are considering moving to), I’d take this!
Knowing that my kids know their neighbors and could turn to, if needed; my kids could walk to their schools safely and walk to a local park to play also, has brought a great deal of peace into my parenting years.
There was a time growing up that I couldn’t go out to play (along with any other kids that may have lived around us) due to the amount of traffic and we didn’t know our neighbors. City life (and that’s what I call high density) is not the easiest to raise a child in. And if I didn’t have someone to walk to or from school with, I would often be filled with trepidation, something I did not want my children to feel about where they lived.
So yeah, we purposely bought this 33 year old home for the ‘peace’ of mind we all could have.
“Here’s the thing” is a registered trademark, son.
Having lived in both gridded and cul-de-sac, I have found that drivers seem to go a bit slower and with a bit more caution when faced with no other way out then the way they came in. Well that and the evil eye residents (parents) give when a driver goes faster then they think is necessary.
But you’re correct Venturan, it is possible. I just haven’t personally lived in that ideal area, and I’ve lived in many.
Possible, yes. But are you in a truly “grided” neighborhood? No. See my response above.
Earlier you referenced a Bryn Mawr street party as being in your “neighborhood.” The Bryn Mawr area is clearly not laid out on a grid. Now you are showing me a picture of a neighborhood almost two miles away. Which is yours?
It doesn’t really matter much. If you go to mapquest and zoom out so that you can see both of those neighborhoods, and you compare it to the old downtown area of Ventura, you will see that there is a difference between a true grid layout and the newer version.
My daughter’s comment about living in a cul-de-sac in SCV between ages 8 and 12:
“Great place for playing in the street, but if you are the only non-Evangelical-Christian family living in the cul-de-sac, the mothers of the other kids are brutal, nasty, condescending. I love my new house on my wide straight street, where I only have to communicate with two neighbors on either side: A Hindu family and a Russian woman with a kid. When I have kids, I will never live in a cul-de-sac unless I can pre-determine the religious and political views of others who live there.”
My dogs’ view of cul-de-sac living “Fun to have a big back yard to run around in.”
Sheesh. Apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.
HEY! I thought I was the cockroach?!
Sorry to hear your daughters experience Coastal Sage, and I must admit that being a person who does not practice any religion, that was my fear when we started our family here in the SCV. When joining preschools or possible play groups religion would inevitabley come up. Seeing how I handled it, helped them learn how to deal with similar situations in the future. Those that didn’t approve of our anti-Christian living, certainly didn’t mind after the big EQ, which is what a neighborhood (IMHO) is all about.
That should read non-Christian, not anti-Christian. I don’t have anything against Christians; heck some of my best neighbors are Christian.
Yeah, right…….
No, really, they’re Christian.
Okay, LOL…
C is for Cookie, that’s good enough for me.
Valencia was designed to be kid friendly. That was one of the marketing aspects and was part of the whole master-planned community idea. I still think that the Paseos get more people walking than I have seen anywhere else in the seven other communities I have lived in over the past 20 years. The only gripe I have is that I live in North Valencia where there are far fewer Paseos and I live on a non-cul-de-sac street. My kids have to go to a friend’s house to safely ride their bikes. I have lived in the city, I have lived in rural areas, I have lived on a cul-de-sac, and I have lived in other “planned” communities and I have to say that Valencia is really is one of the most kid-friendly communities in the state.
However, did you know that throughout most of the history of Valencia, it was really hard for a church to buy any land in these neighborhoods and build? Unless they had an incredible amount of money or connections, they did not have many options. There was a time in the mid-1980s when every single public elementary, jr. high, and high school had a church meeting in it on Sundays (renting the space) and all were trying to find land to build on and suffered because of it. This is one of the reasons you see more churches in Saugus, Newhall and Canyon Country than Valencia. This is also one of the reasons you see churches like Newhall Church of the Nazarene built off Calgrove on the other side of the freeway and not in the heart of the valley. This is one of the drawbacks of “master-planned” communities when compared to more traditional cities. All land was controlled by one entity and it was even hard to get good school locations. Only recently have several churches been able to build in good Valencia locations mainly because no one else has been buying — i.e. Real Life and North Park.
I’m really confused by all this information. Sometimes I think in this world of ours filled with SO MUCH INFORMATION, that maybe people run out of things to do studies about, so they just make stuff up.
I grew up on a cul-de-sac in Van Nuys. The houses were probably built in the beginning of the 1940s although we didn’t move there until 1947. I have amazing memories of playing with all the neighborhood kids in the middle of the street – Kick the Can, 49 Scatter (hide and seek with a twist), Baby in the Air, baseball, football and more. Every sunlit hour was spent outside. We walked a quarter of a mile to the local Joe’s Market to pick up a few things for mom, or to spend our saved up change on a candy bar or a Coke. We walked a few miles each day to and from school, and rode our bikes to the park, the library or the local swimming pool. My dad drove to Burbank on surface streets to work at Lockheed. I don’t ever recall not feeling safe.
Fast forward to my kids growing up on a cul-de-sac – not in Valencia but in Newhall.
“Drive more, less safe, disconnected from neighbors, bad for us, bad for the environment, and bad for safety” – WHAT??? This is what their memories are: playing in the street with all the neighbor kids till the sun went down – Hide and Seek, Red Rover, Red Rover, baseball, softball, soccer, football, skating, riding bikes and climbing in the oak trees. We had neighborhood parties with food, volleyball games (with a real net borrowed from COC for the weekend because Mike Gillespie lived across the street.) We had – bring your BBQs out front in the summer for pot luck dinners, and sometimes we just sat in chairs in someone’s driveway and ordered pizza and watched the kids play in the street. My kids walked to school at Peachland and walked or rode bikes to Placerita Jr. High. I have no recollection of my mom or myself driving more or too much because we lived on a cul-de-sac. My kids walked to Thrifty’s to get an ice cream cone (they were much cheaper than at 31 Flavors) and walked to Tempo Records to buy their Prince, Smiths, Morrissey, REM and Duran Duran. My husband drove the surface streets to work in Canyon Country at Special Devices, Inc.
There have always been choices and those choices are still available to us today. Do I have the kids walk to school or do I drive them? Should I let them ride their bike to their friend’s house or do I drive them? Can we get jobs closer to home probably for less money or do we go to LA on the freeways for the big bucks? Choices – there are always choices. And it really isn’t all that complicated – don’t think we need a study.
Sorry, I over shared and forced you all to go down memory lane with me.
Love your story Cheryl. I’m a “Valley Boy” being born at St. Joseph’s in Burbank and growing up in Sun Valley in a house built in 1956 on Roscoe Bl. This isn’t the Roscoe most think of in the valley. It is the eastern end of the street going up in the canyon east of Glenoaks. The neighborhood is full of cul-de-sac streets. I loved them then for all the reasons you bring up, and I love my cul-de-sac street now. If living on one makes me a bit more car dependent I think that’s all the better. I love that I have a method of transportation that is like my “magic carpet”. For the relatively low cost of fuel and capital it takes me wherever I want to go, when I want to go.
Thank God for my cul-de-sac and my magic carpet.
Great post but I note that what you experienced growing up is no longer the norm. Neighborhood schools like Peachland or Valencia Valley were intended to be walked to by children. That’s the entire concept of a neighborhood school.
Yet in 2011, we see huge surges in traffic around schools as parents drop off students in their cars. Schools have to devote time and resources to managing 1/2 mile long vehicle backups. Why? Why are parents driving their kids to school today when in previous generations their kids walked?
Families buy homes in cul-de-sacs and planned neighborhoods because they perceive them to be safe: safe from excessive car traffic, safe from criminal threats etc…yet they don’t feel safe enough to let their kids walk to school. Why? Where’s the disconnect? Why did my parents walk to school on grid-patterned streets in the 50s but kids today -with paseos, cell phones, and even parental chaperones- don’t?
Finally- really? You’re complaining that people study too many things? You’re a librarian for crying out loud.
It wasn’t unusual back when Cheryl was growing up for families to have only one car. Milk, bread, and dry cleaning were delivered to your home. Anyone remember the Fuller Brush man?
The growth of the “car culture” isn’t a result of cul-de-sacs. It is a result of a lot of factors, including two incomes being necessary to support families and schools cutting back on buses. I rode a bus to junior high. Now school buses are rarely used.
Also, we are far more concerned with safety issues now than we ever were before. Back in the 40′s, 50′s and early 60′s no one cared about seat belts, car seats, bicycle helmets, fenced pools, “child safe” medicine bottle tops, and high fructose corn syrup. Now parents are sick with worry about most everything.
For two years when I was 7 and 8, we lived next to someone who would now be called a child predator. Kids told stories of being invited into his house for games of “find the penny” with the fellow in question wearing only a bathrobe. Today such a person would be brought up on charges and jailed. My mother just told me to stay away from the house and the man.
To blame all our ills on the cul-de-sac seems a little far fetched. And this is where the study in question may fail — to what extent have other factors been taken into consideration, such as income levels, paseos, proximity to services, and crime.
Who’s blaming all our ills on the cul-de-sac? That’s a total straw man Linda.
If you want to find out what the authors used as their independent, dependent and control variables, I’ve got a JSTor login you can borrow and you can download the study and find out.
“All our ills” is just a generalized expression meant to encompass your complaints about the increased traffic around schools. You are the one who brought up the subject of that traffic in the context of cul-de-sacs being perceived as safer, so to that extent, the “straw man” is yours.
As to the study in question, it really makes no difference — we are just passing the time here jabbering about it. Changing the configuration of our neighborhoods isn’t going to happen any time soon, whether it would be to our benefit or not.
Fear; plan and simple.
I find that with the instant connection (which we didn’t have growing up; in a way ignorant to much of the ‘crime’ out there) we have now with the media, many just become fearful of whats out there.
I must admit that I as a young parent I suffered from this; perhaps it is a sign of the times. We have a deep need to protect our young and many of us that transplanted here from the higher crime areas south of the SCV, are a bit more paranoid. Which is all kind of ironic since we came here to get away from the crime, yet we are fearful still the same.
As a child walking home alone many times, I was taught how to be aware of my surroundings and to walk on the opposite side of the street (against traffic). I would later teach my own those same rules.
I also felt it important to have my children ‘know’ their neighbors. It was not easy to do that in some of the areas I grew up in.
But I also know people have many reasons for driving their kids to school: on their way to jobs; the age of the child; making sure their problem child gets to school; weather.
Prior to getting lights put in our area, I would drive my kids because getting across McBean was taking your life in your hands, which scared the (insert word) out of me!
I have/had the same fears about allowing my child being allowed to walk home alone, lvogel. When I was 16, walking to school up Seaward Avenue (a major street in Ventura) I was “flashed” on two occasions by a male resident from the doorway of his house (located in a grid shaped neighborhood
). Several years later, my younger sister was molested by someone on her way home from school. I don’t think allowing kids to walk by themselves was ever perfectly safe; it certainly isn’t today.
True that Linda, however I am of the belief that we should teach our kids how to be safe, not fearful.
I was beat up, flashed and chased as a kid, but those experiences did not cripple me from allowing my children the freedom to walk, ride to school or other places in this valley.
Again, I moved here to get away from the amount of crime many other areas face. If I had stayed in those areas and raised my kids, I would have turned grey much sooner than I did.
I agree – kids should never walk ALONE. Best to walk in groups or with at least one or two friends, but the point is, let them walk.
Maybe we were the exception but in late 1990′s my kids DID walk to Valencia Valley elementary school when we were living in the Central Valley part of Valencia. It was about the equivalent of six blocks. For a short while they were being bullied by a few Valencia High kids who were being dropped off by bus near the school. My wife Patty, then a stay at home mom, monitored their progress home one day, witnessed the bullying interaction then followed the bullies to their house. They had no clue they were about to encounter the “wrath of Patty”. All I can say is they never bullied my kids again.
The world needs more ‘Patty’s'!!!
Why, indeed, Jeff. Why, indeed…………………
And as for being a librarian, I am reminded of one of my favorite Jeff posts, where you spent a Saturday afternoon at the library and while browsing the stacks found the Ernest Hemmingway quote,”Do not ask for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee.” Research is great, but have never been into gathering data for data’s sake. Now watching a child, or an adult for that matter, become a lifelong reader that loves to browse through books and find just the right one – that’s why I’m a librarian for crying out loud.
My kids walked to elementary school. No problem, one of the reasons we chose the house we live. in. But one of my neighbors worries to death that something might happen to her kids if they walk two blocks to school. We as parents need to be vigilant, but there is a fine line between vigilance and being over-protective and paranoid.
Jeff, I concur. I live in 001, where the furthest distance from any house there to the elementary school is 1/2 mile, and that’s NOT taking the more direct paseo route, and yet the majority of parents drop and pick up their kids by car (oops, I should say SUV) every day. They are overprotective and are allowing their kids to become used to a life of low physical activity, and all of the health woes that come with that. Sad.
Cul-de-sacs where (are) good for street ramps for skateboarding and basketball. Being stuck with douchebag neighbors all up in yer biz all the time? Not so good. Plus I remember for some reason they sucked for trick-or-treating.
Thanks for the beige commentary, Jeff. Battle of the blands.
It was your costume, GF. Next time pick something other than a giant douche bag and we’ll let you have the good candy.
Costumes come off at will, personalities are permanent.
Oh, so that isn’t a costume, then?
Just a mirror, lady. Just a suburban mirror.
The Suburban mirror isn’t nearly large enough to serve as a costume, GF. Next time you’re at the auto parts store, grab some seat covers too!
Madder than hell at the scurilous slander against the GOP/Tea Party for booing a gay soldier. First of all, he did not have to lie, because he was not asked about his sexual predilections. Second, he was not booed after he said he was a gay soldier, it was at the end of a provocative “arranged question”, we do not know who booed or why, Petz believes they were Dem plants in the audience.