Suburban Nation - Andres Duany [19]
Chicken scratch: the typically disorienting suburban street pattern that winds back on itself
Indeed, it is difficult to recall a residential area less than fifty years old that has straight streets, which is one reason suburban subdivisions all seem the same. But there is a more serious problem: unrelenting curves create an environment that is utterly disorienting. It is no wonder that so many people associate visiting suburbia with getting lost. Experience would suggest that the real purpose of the ubiquitous suburban gatehouse is not to keep out burglars but to give directions. Even Rand McNally appears overwhelmed by the onslaught of sprawling curlicues; its maps, normally direct and confident, often seem to devolve into hopeless chicken scratch at the suburban fringes.s
That said, curved streets can serve a valuable aesthetic purpose: they provide a constantly changing view as one moves through space, rather than the boring and endless vista that can result from a long straight road. This problem, usually the outcome of a gridiron street pattern, is easily avoided by modifying the grid so that continuous streets are slightly bent while maintaining their general cardinal directions. Curves, per se, are not the problem; the problem is driving along on a street that heads north and finding oneself head ing east, then south, then west.
In fact, the use of a controlled curve to terminate a vista is a sophisticated design technique, and should not be avoided. It dependably provides the sense of intimacy that generates feelings of identity, belonging, and ownership. But there are other ways to terminate a vista, such as the careful placement of a public building, a hallmark of traditional town planning. The scene pictured here, St. Philip’s Episcopal Church in Charleston, did not happen by accident. As already mentioned, the builders of historic towns customarily reserved their most noble sites for civic buildings. The top of a hill, the end of a street, the side of a plaza—these would be set aside for the church, the town hall, the library, and other public structures worthy of honor.
In suburbia, there are no honorable sites for honorable institutions. Civic buildings are sited like any other land use: behind a parking lot off the collector road. Compare that location with the placement of St. Philip’s, which terminates vistas in two directions. This is a view that gives a unique identity to its neighborhood and its city, a view that tourism officials put on posters to inspire people to spend their vacations in Charleston. Unfortunately, this sort of siting is now typically impossible, thanks to the traffic engineers who maintain that if you place a building at the termination of a vista, someone will surely run into it. Never mind that no one has driven into St. Philip’s in a hundred years.
A terminated vista: traditional street networks provide orientation through the celebration of significant buildings
Currently illegal: traditional intersections designed to create memorable places
The honorable placement of civic buildings benefits from the use of traditional intersections designed for just that purpose. A catalogue of these intersections was published in 1909 by the town planner Raymond Unwin. Town Planning in Practice is still the best planning manual available. It provides page after page of intersection geometries that designers still study with admiration. Making use of them, however, is another matter altogether, as the local official, planning for the “drunk driver at midnight,” rejects them on sight. Even in old towns that are full of them, these intersections are typically illegal. Meanwhile, those that do still exist are usually safer statistically than the latest Department of Transportation model, precisely because they don’t feel safe at high speeds. The geometries tell drivers that extra care is required, and drivers respond by slowing down.
An extreme example