I understand that terrain and topography have an impact on street layout, but on perfectly flat ground, the only reason to create winding streets that end up in cul-de-sacs and circles is pure hatred of humanity. Why else would someone create a thoroughfare that is by no means thorough nor fair, taking the time to locate the crow flying and shooting it?
May the developers who design such streets spend eternity trying to deliver pizzas there.
People joke about murders happening in cul-de-sacs, but the truth is such things happen probably because the murderer was just trying to find an address and ended up in a rage when once again he turned onto a dead end street. Having dealt with the scenario of hideous non-stop road construction since April to put in a three-lane road and roundabout, funneling everyone into traffic cone obstacle courses and twirly whirly suburban side streets to get out, I am confident that without God’s mercy I would have become such a person myself.
Movies like “The ‘Burbs” are less a comedy and more a realistic documentary because THE DEVELOPERS IN THIS NATION HATE PEOPLE.
What kind of sick joke is it for developers to take a page from Winnipeg and use as few numbers or logical name progressions as possible to make figuring out where you are impossible without some outside source? Does Frieberg street come after Kamrose? Who knows? There is no applicable system of order and it doesn’t matter anyway because at some point Frieberg and Kamrose are going to merge and have bastard side streets as the result of that union.
What kind of sick joke is it for developers to foist these knotted-string monstrosities of neighborhood planning on generations who are held captive to their smartphone GPS without an understanding of how to use a paper map or that the placement of the sun in the sky tells us something? Sure, you might use cleverly themed names to at least alert drivers that they’ve stumbled into the Korean Demilitarized Zone, but do kids these days even pick up on the fact that all streets in a particular area are named after gun manufacturers but somehow they stumbled into the section of Canada streets?1
What kind of sick joke is it for developers to then build cookie-cutter houses in such developments so there are next to no visual cues that alert you that yes, indeed, you’ve gone by that “corner” several times before?
What kind of a sick joke is it to stick roundabouts in these types of developments and watch people spiral into hopelessness?
I understand that we’re almost to WW3 and there are far more pressing concerns, but these are real questions. Is it impossible to build housing developments on straight streets, or must everything be crooked, from the zoning committee down to the pavement?
You know what the new Nightmare on Elm Street is?
Finding it.
Trying to create a suburban paradise with winding neighborhoods meant to mimic golf courses or park settings in the hopes of fooling people they weren’t surrounded by asphalt and the failed dreams of the rat race, even as sirens waft through the air, is a waste of time. The homes you build lack front porches and are mostly giant garages with living quarters attached, encouraging a rich backyard life with high privacy fences because you’ve piled houses so close to each other.
I will end my rant, not because I don’t have more to say, but because I have much more to say but no time to do it because I’m basically stuck in a cloverleaf and will never got onto the interstate.
Yes, Bismarck has a section of streets named after Canada and gun manufacturers, and many more oddities.
I grew up in a cul-de-sac neighborhood surrounded by farmland and forests, with creeks and ponds to explore, and I loved that tucked-away feeling.
The neighborhood had one central spine with four smaller "rib" streets extending (mostly) west from it. Each rib street had about two dozen single-family homes on it, most with a good-sized yard. The main spine ended in a cul-de-sac too, and it had about 40 houses on it. So, maybe 150 houses in all.
The cul-de-sacs ended in large circles which became a gathering place for the neighborhood kids to play games like kick-the-can and whiffle ball. They were safe spaces because there was never a reason for anyone to drive into that neighborhood unless they lived there—because the entire thing was a dead end. It naturally kept outsiders out and reduced the traffic to the rare neighbor's car so that kids could ride bikes and do what kids do without getting run over or dodging traffic constantly.
I can't say a single bad thing about a modest cul-de-sac residential area. I loved the neighborhood I grew up in. It was darned near perfect, like something out of _Leave It to Beaver_. Our street had annual block parties, and all the adults were friendly, hung out together, and organized card clubs and the like. How good was it? Many of the kids who grew up there bought their parents' house, so many current residents are second and even third generation.
However, if it's the endless kind of sprawl depicted in horror flicks like _Poltergeist_ or _Vivarium_, or a cul-de-sac retail area, heck no.