Myth 1: Who is he to say how people feel about their neighborhood is nonsense? There are plenty where the neighbors know each other, their kids play, they have block parties and BBQs, and there's a strong fabric of trust. To pitch them all as "nonsense" is to sweep away all pretense of objectivity.
Myth 2: How much traffic someone gets varies widely with the street. In his red zone, I'd bet traffic is next-to-none on E. Radiom, Amona, E. Lemona, and Hallock; light on Nemo and Damson; medium on W. Radiom and W. Lemona; and "heavy" on the rest. But consider even Erie and Avila: no car would take both, and many will take neither; their realistic exposure is maybe 50-75 households? Compare that to a giant grid, where every street is a route to every other, and I don't think the outcome is clear at all. But it'd be dumb to get a house on N. Radio or N. Hale to avoid traffic, sure.
An added question is whether people speed more in a closed community or in a grid. Daily I see lots of people on main roads tear off onto residential streets to circumvent red lights, and the last thing they want to see when they meet back up with the artery is the people who waited, passing them by.
Myth 3: For the reasons above, less traffic traveling by my house -- which is clearly possible in these neighborhoods -- means less pollution in the form of noise, smoke, and gas fumes.
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Not to say the grid system doesn't have its merits, and I agree on some of them. But I don't think I'd want to see either system entirely eliminated... much less with the presumption that there are just millions of closed-minded people out there who are dead wrong about where they want to live, because they're simply not as enlightened as your humble author.
Mass residential here tends to spawn more and more speed-bumps over time as community action groups and similar demand "safer roads". Even considering that, they're very common routes for taxis and private vehicles that want to avoid blockages or traffic-lights. About the only thing they reduce is non-essential trucking.
To the other point, regardless of average traffic, it's perfectly possible there'll be a bit of a queue during peak commuting hour(s), and secondly, it seems quite odd that a whole neighbourhood could be disconnected by something like essential road-works or a fallen tree.
I'm with you on the somewhere-inbetween approach. Balancing accessibility, traffic density, noise, and fault resilience is tricky, but much moreso is the cost of alterations to existing neighbourhoods built on one style or the other.
> An added question is whether people speed more in a closed community or in a grid.
I live on a cul de sac and not a day goes by that I don't see someone speeding through the stop sign a few houses down. The cul de sac is not what appealed to me about where I'm living, and I would gladly give it up so I could ride my bicycle unimpeded to the subway station that's nearby without being forced out to the major highway that runs through the area.
Sure, and I've seen it, too; but for both of us, it's just anecdotal. It'll obviously depend on a lot of geo- and demo- and chronographic factors which one is worse.
Myth 1: Who is he to say how people feel about their neighborhood is nonsense? There are plenty where the neighbors know each other, their kids play, they have block parties and BBQs, and there's a strong fabric of trust. To pitch them all as "nonsense" is to sweep away all pretense of objectivity.
Myth 2: How much traffic someone gets varies widely with the street. In his red zone, I'd bet traffic is next-to-none on E. Radiom, Amona, E. Lemona, and Hallock; light on Nemo and Damson; medium on W. Radiom and W. Lemona; and "heavy" on the rest. But consider even Erie and Avila: no car would take both, and many will take neither; their realistic exposure is maybe 50-75 households? Compare that to a giant grid, where every street is a route to every other, and I don't think the outcome is clear at all. But it'd be dumb to get a house on N. Radio or N. Hale to avoid traffic, sure.
An added question is whether people speed more in a closed community or in a grid. Daily I see lots of people on main roads tear off onto residential streets to circumvent red lights, and the last thing they want to see when they meet back up with the artery is the people who waited, passing them by.
Myth 3: For the reasons above, less traffic traveling by my house -- which is clearly possible in these neighborhoods -- means less pollution in the form of noise, smoke, and gas fumes.
...
Not to say the grid system doesn't have its merits, and I agree on some of them. But I don't think I'd want to see either system entirely eliminated... much less with the presumption that there are just millions of closed-minded people out there who are dead wrong about where they want to live, because they're simply not as enlightened as your humble author.