Posted on 07/31/2018 11:00:36 PM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
I had travled to the Denver area back in 77-88 and saw the amount of planning That had gone into the streets in the SW area of the county.
On land that could have been used for a movie showing cavalry/indian conflict, there was a grid of four lane streets, medians and stoplights; just waiting the housing to be built some time in the future.
Coming from where Indianapolis had sprawled out along small country roads; designed for HORSES and not horse power; I was impressed.
(Hoosiers STILL haven’t figured it out to enlarge the roads LONG before the buildings have arrived.)
The suburban Denver street grid sitting empty sounds a bit extreme. I can only assume that the development plans were already set in stone and that the area filled up quickly. But in general, the same effect can be achieved with design standards that are followed incrementally as areas build out. The solution is really just an accumulation of little things that add up as density increases. The development can usually be anticipated. There is no excuse for willy-nilly, unplanned sprawl along country roads in the exurbs of major cities. Twenty years down the road, you end up with unconnected developments emptying onto clogged arterial roads with miles of awful strip development on main roads creating an eyesore for everyone's commute.
Part of the problem is that no single developer has an interest in making sure that side roads connect in a rational grid, so they don't; The developers build over one farm at a time, and everyone gets out onto the main road even for local trips. No single developer has an interest in walking or biking routes that actually connect to anything, so non-automotive traffic is designed out (or forced onto inappropriate roads). No single developer has an interest in viewing, say, a stream as anything more than an attractive thing for the backyards in his little cul-de-sac; the idea that the stream corridor may soon be a park and a natural route for off-road trails is outside a developer's parameters.
On an even larger scale, no single developer has a stake in looking at the parks and recreation needs of a large suburban county after it fully builds out. Parks get built as afterthoughts after the area has reached critical mass, so they are wedged into awkward unbuilt spaces unconnected (except by car) to the surrounding area, unreachable by kids on bikes, and inconvenient to many potential users. They become just another destination for a car trip, instead of organic neighborhood assets. Etc., etc.
A little good planning in the early stages goes a long way. Part of the problem is that people move to the edge suburbs to "move to the country." They want the illusion that they are escaping the city every night as they commute home. They buy as far out as they can tolerate the commute, and they spend the next ten years muttering as the remaining farms around them are, one by one, developed. And oftentimes, exurban jurisdictions want the initial development but still want to think of themselves as rural. You see it all the time around DC, and I'm sure many other cities as well. Farms are giving way to tract housing, but the locals have clearly not adjusted to the fact that the area will be highly urban in 20 years. And then, in 20 years, they will be kicking themselves and trying to retrofit basic, sensible urban design parameters into an area that stayed stupid for too long.
We live on Capitol Hill in DC. When my daughter was much younger, her soccer team played home games in Anacostia Park, which is the floodplain on the left bank of the Anacostia immediately opposite Capitol Hill. We used to bike over; we'd loop through the neighborhood collecting the girls and a few parents on bikes, cross the bridge, and ride together to the field. When we played suburban teams, the look on the parent's faces was priceless. First of all, they were in the dreaded Anacostia; not having any local knowledge, they had no idea that big parts of Anacostia were (and are) just fine. They thought they were on a dangerous adventure. Then we would show up with a convoy of ten year old girls on bikes. The idea of a neighborhood team riding bikes to a soccer game was so unexpected that I'm surprised some heads didn't explode. (These were suburban parents who were accustomed to hopping into their cars to do anything and everything.) But there's no reason suburbs can't build neighborhoods that are just as functional. All it takes is making sure that streets are bikeable and that a safe bike path connects to the parks, and you're in business.
I have no idea; as I've never been back.
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