The Suburbs Under Siege

Homeowners Love Cul-de-Sacs,
Planners Say They're Perils;
Taking Sides in Minnesota

By AMIR EFRATI, The Wall Street Journal (June 2, 2006)

One of the most popular features of suburbia is under attack.

For many families, cul-de-sac living represents the epitome of suburban bliss: a traffic-free play zone for children, a ready roster of neighbors with extra gas for the lawnmower and a communal gathering space for sharing gin and tonics. But thanks to a growing chorus of critics, ranging from city planners and traffic engineers to snowplow drivers, hundreds of local governments from San Luis Obispo, Calif., to Charlotte, N.C., have passed zoning ordinances to limit cul-de-sacs or even ban them in the future.

In Oregon, about 90% of the state's 241 cities have changed their laws to limit cul-de-sacs, while 40 small municipalities outside Philadelphia have adopted restrictions or bans. Even when they're not trying to stamp them out, some towns are keeping a close eye on how cul-de-sacs are being built. Earlier this year, the city of Pekin, Ill., established new rules to make cul-de-sacs more maneuverable for service vehicles like fire trucks and school buses.

While homes on cul-de-sacs are still being built in large numbers and continue to fetch premiums from buyers who prefer them, the opposition has only been growing. The most common complaint: traffic. Because most of the roads in a neighborhood of cul-de-sacs are dead ends, some traffic experts say the only way to navigate around the neighborhood is to take peripheral roads that are already cluttered with traffic. And because most cul-de-sacs aren't connected by sidewalks, the only way for people who live there to run errands is to get in their cars and join the traffic.

In Charlotte, where the suburbs have emerged as a leading cul-de-sac battleground, a recent study by transportation planners found that almost all of the city's heavily congested intersections were located near residential developments from the 1960s, '70s and '80s, which are filled with cul-de-sac neighborhoods. The biggest traffic problems aren't in the old central cities these days, says Orlando, Fla.-based traffic engineer Walter Kulash, "but rather in the suburban periphery."

Land-use planners trace the origin of the American version of the cul-de-sac, which means "bottom of the bag" in French, to a development in Radburn, N.J., in 1929. Land planner Ed Tombari of the National Association of Home Builders says the design became popular during the housing boom after World War II, when many families turned away from the congested grids of central cities to live on quiet cul-de-sacs with lawns and winding roads more reminiscent of the countryside. To ensure privacy, developers limited the number of roads leading in.

According to the Census Bureau, the population of American suburbs grew 12% from 1980 to 2000, while the total population in center cities grew by just 1%. Likewise, from 1997 to 2003, the total percentage of American housing units located in the suburbs rose to 62 million, an increase of about 9%. The influx of homes in the suburbs, and the traffic they bring, has become the chief concern of planners across the nation, many of whom are struggling to mitigate the impact of car culture.

To some of them, cul-de-sacs have come to represent a failed experiment that has produced more isolation and more traffic by forcing people into their cars. David Schrank, a transportation researcher with the Texas Transportation Institute at Texas A&M University, says the old "peak hour" of traffic in many suburbs has been replaced by a longer "peak period." As new developments spring up, he says, "sometimes the transport network isn't in place to support them."

In some growing suburbs, "cul-de-sac" is becoming a dirty word. At a meeting in April with the planning commission in Northfield, Minn., a suburb of Minneapolis that has adopted rules preventing the use of cul-de-sacs, developer Lynn Giovannelli of Miles Development says she was "blindsided" by a chorus of objections about a single cul-de-sac she was including in plans for part of a new subdivision called Rosewood. "The land parcel was a funky shape, and I told them the only way to do anything with it is to do a cul-de-sac," she says. One commissioner told her to put in a park instead. "Preposterous," she says. "I was rolling my eyes."

While the plan was ultimately approved, it wasn't unanimous. "We might be prejudiced," says Jim Herreid, one of two commissioners who voted against the plan. "But we just don't like cul-de-sacs because they restrict the ability to get around town easily."

For all the criticism aimed at them, cul-de-sacs do seem to have one last defender: the free market. Real-estate brokers say that despite the recent opposition by policy makers, homes on cul-de-sacs still tend to sell faster than other homes -- and often command a comfortable premium. Ralph Spargo, the vice president of product development for Standard Pacific Homes in Irvine, Calif., says his company charges as much as 5% more for a home located on one. (For a house that sells for the April 2006 national median price of $223,000, that works out to about $11,000).

Rochelle Johnson, a 38-year-old real-estate agent from Lakeville, Minn., who grew up on a cul-de-sac, says she doesn't worry about the "isolation" -- she welcomes it. From her home on a cul-de-sac in a development called Wyldwood Oaks, Mrs. Johnson says the minimal amount of traffic gives her the peace of mind to allow her two children to play soccer in the street. "I don't know why somebody wouldn't want to live on a cul-de-sac," she says.

While suburban planners aren't trying to retrofit existing cul-de-sacs, they are making a concerted effort to make sure that new developments don't repeat some of their perceived faults. In cities like Boulder, Colo., and San Antonio, where suburban-style development is still taking place within city limits, new regulations have narrowed street widths in some new developments to make them easier to cross by foot. In a host of cities in Oregon, including Portland, lawmakers have shortened the acceptable length of street blocks to about 500 feet, down from 800 to 1,000. And in Rock Hill, S.C., which changed its rules in March, developers who build cul-de-sacs are required to cut pedestrian paths through their bulb-like tips to connect them to other sidewalks and allow people to walk through neighborhoods unimpeded.

By reducing cul-de-sac construction, developers say, local governments are depriving them of one of the most popular -- and lucrative -- housing types at a time when the housing market is slowing down in many regions. In Ames, Iowa, developer Chuck Winkleblack of Hunziker & Associates says new regulations on cul-de-sacs there have reduced choices for buyers. In the 1980s, when his company built a neighborhood called Northridge, there were 23 cul-de-sacs in the 410-home community. By contrast, Northridge Heights, a project set to be completed in 2009, calls for 350 single-family homes and 150 townhouses and apartments with only two cul-de-sacs. "I had to beg and plead to get those in," says Mr. Winkleblack.

Trade-Offs

Although the campaign against cul-de-sacs continues, lawmakers are making some concessions. As a trade-off for limiting them, cities like Nashville, Tenn., are letting developers put more homes, including townhouses and apartments, on less land. And in some places, measures being planned to increase traffic flow have been beaten back. In late 2004, when residents of two upscale subdivisions in York County, S.C. -- Eppington and Knight's Bridge, with homes in the $500,000 to $600,000 range -- got wind of a plan to connect them, by roads, to a proposed development called The Reserve, which had lower-priced homes, residents of the wealthy areas pressured the county council to nix the proposal.