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Why Some Towns Place Roadblocks on Cul-de-Sacs -New York Times 12/17/200701:07 PM The City Council passed an ordinance several years ago saying that cul-de-sacs can "only be used to the extent that the topography, wetlands or other physical features necessitate their use." "They really don't provide connectivity and ease of access to other areas of the city," Mr. Olson said. In 1998, when the preliminary plan for Rosewood's fifth addition was approved, the subdivision included three cul-de-sacs, Mr. Olson said. The developer agreed to make two of them through streets but insisted that the remaining one was vital to the project. The single cul-de-sac provoked vigorous debate in the planning commission before the revised plan was finally approved in April, with two dissenting votes. In her blog, Tracy Davis, one of the commissioners who voted no, wrote a few days later that the city was essentially sanctioning "cul-de-sac starter castles and monotonous 'burb developments." Don Mitchell, professor of geography at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at ~vl, acu~~ university, grew up on a cul-de-sac in Moraga, Calif., and has seen both sides of the debate. "It's a quiet street that all us kids could play on without too much fear of traffic," he said. "And there was pretty good surveillance by our parents when we were out in the street." But those advantages can also be disadvantages. "They're quite insular," he said. "They tend to almost induce acircle-the-wagons sort of atmosphere, so anybody becomes a stranger who's on the street. They don't often act like public streets. We always knew when there was someone who wasn't a regular on our street, and yet they had every right to be there." Originating in England, where they have also come under criticism lately, the cul-de-sac has evolved since it was introduced in the United States in the late i92o's. Eugenie L. Birch, chairwoman of the department of city and regional planning at the University of n~ vlvania's School of Design, noted that in Radburn, N.J., site of some of the earliest American cul-de- sacs, the street pattern had been used to create more public space. "The houses were designed so the backs of the houses would be on the cul-de-sac," she said. "In other words, the cul-de-sac was a service street." The fronts of the houses looked out on either pedestrian walkways or large interior parks. But even that created a problem in the i92o's, before the clothes dryer became a standard appliance in the home, Dr. Birch said. Residents debated whether their clotheslines should be in the backs of their houses and therefore on the cul-de-sacs or away from the street and in the fronts of their houses. "I become suspicious when people just say no, no, no, you can't have them, because there are lots of ways one can be imaginative about them," Dr. Birch said. "Unfortunately, most of our land development has not been particularly imaginative about them." Although planners may be turning away from cul-de-sacs, people who actually live on them are willing to http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/27/realestate/27nati.html~ r=2&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print&oref=slogin Page 2 of 3