Smart growth supporters tend to prefer grid systems to cul-de-sacs, for excellent reasons. A proliferation of cul-de-sacs artificially lengthens walking distances: if streets don’t connect to each other, you might have to walk a mile to go just a few hundred feet. In addition, cul-de-sacs increase traffic congestion by dumping most vehicular traffic on a few major streets. And because biking is less safe on busy, high-traffic streets, bikers benefit from a grid system as well.
grid
Goodbee Square: the Quest for a Contemporary Urban Pattern
Duany Plater-Zyberk and Company was hired to turn a greenfield about 50 miles north of New Orleans into a 1,280-unit blend of town and rural living. In the process, they proposed a radical new way of looking at the street grid. Fanis Grammenos explains.
Smart Growth: Claustrophobic, Unsafe, and Bad for Gas Mileage
Rick Harrison argues that smart growth looks good on paper, but in application the density creates a whole host of problems.
New Geography
Ancient Cities Found in the Amazon
Anthropologists have discovered traces of highly organized and gridded cities in the Amazon rainforest dating back to the 1200s.
National Geographic



















