Why did we stop building through-streets?

[Charlie_mta]

I would rather live in a world where thieves had a better chance, to be honest. The rise of “security“ and “safety” in dictating policy is another worrisome trend of modernity, and nearly all the measures end up leading to suppression of human freedom, Including freedom of movement, as a byproduct.

Yes, isolationism and tribalism seems to be increasing. Post WW-II suburban planning and zoning of vast residential-only subdivisions fostered it, which then influenced urban areas to mimic that single-use exclusionary model. I also have my own theory that the end of the military draft helped foster separation of the country into isolated groups. When I was in the Navy in the late 60s/early 70s, I saw that the universal draft had the positive effect of drawing people together of every class, education level, race, and type, forcing us to live and work together, and to learn about each other. That's pretty much absent today from what I can tell.

 

[FK4]

Yes, isolationism and tribalism seems to be increasing. Post WW-II suburban planning and zoning of vast residential-only subdivisions fostered it, which then influenced urban areas to mimic that single-use exclusionary model. I also have my own theory that the end of the military draft helped foster separation of the country into isolated groups. When I was in the Navy in the late 60s/early 70s, I saw that the universal draft had the positive effect of drawing people together of every class, education level, race, and type, forcing us to live and work together, and to learn about each other. That's pretty much absent today from what I can tell.

Oh, I’m with you on that. Not to totally derail this (tho this is — finally! — a thread that is actually about something sociocultural, so it IS relevant), but one of two linchpin of the entire class divide that is front and center today originated in the 1960s with Vietnam (the other being civil rights). Vietnam was where society fractured over the privileged elites who were anti-war and able to get away with draft avoidance and the working class counter-protesters, best summarized musically in Merl Haggard’s “Fightin Side of Me” which could’ve been written during the last election and not half a century ago. It was at that point that the military itself came to be reviled by more privileged classes, rather than an institution that all Americans found their way to. The removal of the draft only solidified this tension. And here we are today, with a schism in America between those who are pro cop and pro military and who generally (now) feel under siege by coastal middle class professionals, who likewise look down at what they see as reactionary authoritarianism of those who support war and law and order. And this of course keeps feeding itself, driving further polarization.

Were you around any the Boston anti- or counter-anti war protests? I’ve seen some pretty impressive pictures and it looks tense. One other thing those pics made me realize is that the State House wasn’t always completely off limits to protesters. I find it sad and scary that the state govt, probably under the auspices of “security” due to being freaked out by hippies on the front steps, fenced off literally the entire property. If you think of it, it’s an astounding lack of freedom that the only space to protest is a tiny sidewalk in front of the state house. Pretty antidemocratic, if you ask me.

 

[Charlie_mta]

Oh, I’m with you on that. Not to totally derail this (tho this is — finally! — a thread that is actually about something sociocultural, so it IS relevant), but one of two linchpin of the entire class divide that is front and center today originated in the 1960s with Vietnam (the other being civil rights). Vietnam was where society fractured over the privileged elites who were anti-war and able to get away with draft avoidance and the working class counter-protesters, best summarized musically in Merl Haggard’s “Fightin Side of Me” which could’ve been written during the last election and not half a century ago. It was at that point that the military itself came to be reviled by more privileged classes, rather than an institution that all Americans found their way to. The removal of the draft only solidified this tension. And here we are today, with a schism in America between those who are pro cop and pro military and who generally (now) feel under siege by coastal middle class professionals, who likewise look down at what they see as reactionary authoritarianism of those who support war and law and order. And this of course keeps feeding itself, driving further polarization.

Were you around any the Boston anti- or counter-anti war protests? I’ve seen some pretty impressive pictures and it looks tense. One other thing those pics made me realize is that the State House wasn’t always completely off limits to protesters. I find it sad and scary that the state govt, probably under the auspices of “security” due to being freaked out by hippies on the front steps, fenced off literally the entire property. If you think of it, it’s an astounding lack of freedom that the only space to protest is a tiny sidewalk in front of the state house. Pretty antidemocratic, if you ask me.

Having lived through both eras, my observation is that the present socio-political environment is far, far more divided now than it ever was in the late 1960s/early 70s. I'm friends with a few Vietnam vets around my age (mid-70s) and they all see now, and saw back then, how the Vietnam War was a disaster and a mistake, as did pretty much everyone else. There was not really a great divide in the country during that time. And as I said, in the military were college educated people, as well as the underclass. There were people of all types and backgrounds. It was not like today at all wherein the military is made up mostly of the so-called underclass. So, in my view today, we have become a much more divided and balkanized country, and the whole feeling is way more of a chaotic shit-show than it ever was in the 60s.
So, getting back to how this relates to city planning and development, I'd say the way to help mitigate this current divide is to continue developing mixed-use residential/retail/commercial, with a portion of the residential units designated as subsidized rents for low-income people. Build these types of developments not only in the inner cities but also as TOD in the historically affluent suburbs. And yes, build these on a street grid of through streets to serve as a platform for walkability, diversity, inter-cultural communication, and openness.

 

[FK4]

Having lived through both eras, my observation is that the present socio-political environment is far, far more divided now than it ever was in the late 1960s/early 70s. I'm friends with a few Vietnam vets around my age (mid-70s) and they all see now, and saw back then, how the Vietnam War was a disaster and a mistake, as did pretty much everyone else. There was not really a great divide in the country during that time. And as I said, in the military were college educated people, as well as the underclass. There were people of all types and backgrounds. It was not like today at all wherein the military is made up mostly of the so-called underclass. So, in my view today, we have become a much more divided and balkanized country, and the whole feeling is way more of a chaotic shit-show than it ever was in the 60s.
So, getting back to how this relates to city planning and development, I'd say the way to help mitigate this current divide is to continue developing mixed-use residential/retail/commercial, with a portion of the residential units designated as subsidized rents for low-income people. Build these types of developments not only in the inner cities but also as TOD in the historically affluent suburbs. And yes, build these on a street grid of through streets to serve as a platform for walkability, diversity, inter-cultural communication, and openness.

I think beyond just social mixing, the important theme here is participation, and more specifically, *collective participation*. When you live above a shop that’s on the street that connects two different neighborhoods, the car that stops to pick up groceries or the lady taking the streetcar to your local laundromat isn’t just mixing with you and you’re environment, they’re participants in the same milieu as you. I think the same is true of the pre schism military issues: collective participation was the way things were. When you have collective participation, you have a “we” mentality. It’s more than simply a group of individuals who all are working in a group form to achieve individual goals, but there’s an additional shared identity and intention. It’s the lack of that that is so damaging.

 

[stick n move]

 

[Blackbird]

Haven’t been able to circle back to this in a while, but I do think I’ve found a good case study for how one-way-in/one-way-out development is strangling the commonwealth:

English Commons is such a development in Topsfield right after the split between route 1 and I-95 as it heads up to Newburyport. Here is a nice view from above.

I look at this on Google Maps and wonder to myself “what’s the plan to fill all the rest of that area [I shaded it in yellow] with housing”. It can’t be conservation land, and this is literally at the junction of two major highways for the North Shore. Phenomenal transit-access from a driver’s perspective. No reason the whole area shouldn’t be chock-full of houses.

And this is why it bugs me that the governor’s housing report focuses so much on upzoning MA towns rather than expanding their buildable footprint. The state would get way more bang for their buck housing-wise (imo) and it would probably be an easier sell for towns that want to “preserve character” to build new SFH homes in places like Topsfield along a bunch of new streets rather than trying to stuff some 2-family or 4-family units along the sparse, pre-existing streets.

 

[KCasiglio]

AxisGIS - TopsfieldMA

www.axisgis.com

The undeveloped land northwest of the development is owned by Essex County Greenbelt Association, and all that land north of it is owned by the water utility. It can in fact be conservation land.

 

[TheRatmeister]

Haven’t been able to circle back to this in a while, but I do think I’ve found a good case study for how one-way-in/one-way-out development is strangling the commonwealth:

View attachment 60559

English Commons is such a development in Topsfield right after the split between route 1 and I-95 as it heads up to Newburyport. Here is a nice view from above.

I look at this on Google Maps and wonder to myself “what’s the plan to fill all the rest of that area [I shaded it in yellow] with housing”. It can’t be conservation land, and this is literally at the junction of two major highways for the North Shore. Phenomenal transit-access from a driver’s perspective. No reason the whole area shouldn’t be chock-full of houses.

And this is why it bugs me that the governor’s housing report focuses so much on upzoning MA towns rather than expanding their buildable footprint. The state would get way more bang for their buck housing-wise (imo) and it would probably be an easier sell for towns that want to “preserve character” to build new SFH homes in places like Topsfield along a bunch of new streets rather than trying to stuff some 2-family or 4-family units along the sparse, pre-existing streets.

Hot-take, no. We don't need to, and I would argue shouldn't, keep sprawling out when we have so much cleared but lightly developed land around.

 

[Blackbird]

Hot-take, no. We don't need to, and I would argue shouldn't, keep sprawling out when we have so much cleared but lightly developed land around.

It’s not “sprawling out” if it’s filling-in gaps.

This is a form of densification, just a different kind from the “what if we put a 20-unit apt building on the old superfund site” way that were used to in MA.

Edit: I feel like I should add some more context to this since (a) I feel pretty strongly about it and (b) I feel like we’re using different definitions of “sprawl”.

I’ve got a buddy from college who commutes daily from Rochester, NH to his job in Billerica. He had the job before he bought the house and a big part of why he accepted a 1.5hr commute was price/availability of SFHs in Rochester over MA. That is my own personal definition of what it means to “sprawl”. And conversely, trying to cram as many houses as possible (even SFH on 0.5 acre lots with no sidewalks) into places like Tewksbury and Wilmington so that it’s not wildly cheaper for someone working in Billerica or Burlington to commute from far-flung parts of NH is the antithesis of creating or adding to sprawl.

 

[kdmc]

And conversely, trying to cram as many houses as possible (even SFH on 0.5 acre lots with no sidewalks)

This is where you lose me. Other than lowering housing costs, everything else about this makes life worse in the town. More cars, more need for parking lots and big box stores, less green, fewer preserved wildlife corridors, fewer trees drinking up CO2. Why raze forests to build SFHs when we could be building MFHs on parking lots in town centers instead?

Maybe I just have a soft spot for pockets of woods. The CT town I grew up in had a lot of them, and they really contributed to the joy and character of the town and my parent's house. What sucked about growing up there was the lack of sidewalks to get to school or the town center, which was (and still is) filled with parking lots that could be condos.

 

[ritchiew]

It’s not “sprawling out” if it’s filling-in gaps.

This is a form of densification, just a different kind from the “what if we put a 20-unit apt building on the old superfund site” way that were used to in MA.

Edit: I feel like I should add some more context to this since (a) I feel pretty strongly about it and (b) I feel like we’re using different definitions of “sprawl”.

I’ve got a buddy from college who commutes daily from Rochester, NH to his job in Billerica. He had the job before he bought the house and a big part of why he accepted a 1.5hr commute was price/availability of SFHs in Rochester over MA. That is my own personal definition of what it means to “sprawl”. And conversely, trying to cram as many houses as possible (even SFH on 0.5 acre lots with no sidewalks) into places like Tewksbury and Wilmington so that it’s not wildly cheaper for someone working in Billerica or Burlington to commute from far-flung parts of NH is the antithesis of creating or adding to sprawl.

The wikipedia page for urban sprawl defines it as "the spreading of urban developments (such as houses and shopping centers) on undeveloped land near a city." That's a pretty fundamental part of the definition, that's how I understand the term, and it looks like exactly what you're proposing. Past that, it looks like there's some differing opinions on exactly what counts as sprawl, but "low density" is important. The threshold there can be debated, but "single family homes with yards" is absolutely "low density." I think what you're proposing is unambiguously "sprawl," regardless whether there is some other spot that is even more sprawling.

 

[Charlie_mta]

It’s not “sprawling out” if it’s filling-in gaps.

Leaving in a network of open and undeveloped space is important for human mental and physical health as well as for ecological sustainability. Even downtown NYC and Boston have large parks in their center, and we have this wonderful network of parks and reservations set up by Olmsted and others in the 1800s all around the greater Boston area. If you cram in development from horizon to horizon, what do you have? Probably a dystopian nightmare

 

[KCasiglio]

If you cram in development from horizon to horizon, what do you have?

The American Dream

 

[TheRatmeister]

The American Dream

View attachment 60637

Ah Cape Coral, objectively the silliest city in the US.

 

[stick n move]

“Of all the changes in the built environment in the 20th Century, none had more impact than abandoning the street grid—which occurred in the US around 1950.

That one change did more to eliminate walkability long-term, and the effects on public health and safety are dramatic. The street network change triples road fatalities, according to a study of 24 California cities—half of which were laid out mostly before 1950, and the other half mostly after. A second study of these same cities correlated the post-1950 networks with higher obesity, heart disease, and high blood pressure.

The studies may underestimate the impact of the street network shift since all of the cities have some sprawl. Jeff Speck reports that if you compare traditional cities like New York or San Francisco to a place that is nearly 100 percent sprawl (Hillsboro County, FL), the sprawl has 17 times higher road fatalities…….”

https://www.cnu.org/publicsquare/2025/02/25/innovative-street-grid-proposal

 

[FK4]

It’s not “sprawling out” if it’s filling-in gaps.

This is a form of densification, just a different kind from the “what if we put a 20-unit apt building on the old superfund site” way that were used to in MA.

Edit: I feel like I should add some more context to this since (a) I feel pretty strongly about it and (b) I feel like we’re using different definitions of “sprawl”.

I’ve got a buddy from college who commutes daily from Rochester, NH to his job in Billerica. He had the job before he bought the house and a big part of why he accepted a 1.5hr commute was price/availability of SFHs in Rochester over MA. That is my own personal definition of what it means to “sprawl”. And conversely, trying to cram as many houses as possible (even SFH on 0.5 acre lots with no sidewalks) into places like Tewksbury and Wilmington so that it’s not wildly cheaper for someone working in Billerica or Burlington to commute from far-flung parts of NH is the antithesis of creating or adding to sprawl.

I think we should develop as little existing green space as possible, and developments like that Commons you posted are a perfect example of cancerous developments that you see from the outer burbs into the inner city, even in Roxbury and Hyde Park. We have plenty of space that already has been ruined by humans and is low density and poorly used, as Ratmeister pointed out, so that should be where most development happens. I am sick of going thru pristine byways in the country and seeing clearcut acres hacked out of the woods to accommodate garbage development patterns chasing after a version of the American dream that was dead and buried a generation ago.

 

[Blackbird]

I think we should develop as little existing green space as possible…….chasing after a version of the American dream that was dead and buried a generation ago.

Exhibit A as to why Greater Boston has a housing crisis, everybody!

Nothing will ever get better in terms of the cost of living until this kind of thinking dies.

Or maybe we just let Weston keep its trees and let Waltham become Kowloon because that’s where density already exists and where it should only ever exist. Weston deserves it because it can afford it!

———

Edit: Still thinking about the responses above this one. Might address later. Saw this one first and responded quickly with a gut-answer.

Don’t take this answer as a response to all the replies since my last post!

 

[TheRatmeister]

Exhibit A as to why Greater Boston has a housing crisis, everybody!

Nothing will ever get better in terms of the cost of living until this kind of thinking dies.

Or maybe we just let Weston keep its trees and let Waltham become Kowloon because that’s where density already exists and where it should only ever exist. Weston deserves it because it can afford it!

———

Edit: Still thinking about the responses above this one. Might address later. Saw this one first and responded quickly with a gut-answer.

Don’t take this answer as a response to all the replies since my last post!

Developing more woodland with the same SFHs doesn't really densify anything, it just expands it.

There are in fact ways to increase density without sprawling out more. Those giant mansions could be split into two connected homes, for example. Build some new condo buildings with a handful of units on the empty sites scattered around town, and allow for ADUs on all parcels. None of those require chopping down more trees.

That's not to say every tree should stay where it is forever, around Silver Hill and Kendall Green it probably would be a good idea to expand, adding new homes in the form of duplexes, triplexes, condos, etc on green land. But you don't need to turn it into Phoenix by taking every last parcel available and using it for single family homes.

 

[HenryAlan]

This is a form of densification, just a different kind from the “what if we put a 20-unit apt building on the old superfund site” way that were used to in MA.

Yes, it does represent a type of increased density, which is why the Los Angeles MSA, for example, has nearly twice the population density as the Boston MSA. But did it work for Los Angeles to follow that approach? Housing is just as expensive as it is here, traffic is just as bad, and commuting distances are on average even more extreme. As others have noted, the problem in your suggestion is that it expands the geography of our built environment, which displaces recreational areas, wilds, and important carbon sinks without actually solving the problem that housing is too expensive when not excessively remote. The specific example of Taunton, near a major highway interchange might be a good place to locate a lot of housing, but it shouldn't involve sprawling the geographic footprint of human settlement.

 

[KCasiglio]

While I on the whole strongly agree that low-density greenfield infill (is infill even the right word?) is not the way, or even the primary way, in which we address the housing crisis, I think it's wrong to completely dismiss the notion that there are instances where what @Blackbird describes makes complete sense. The *particular example* is not one of them, and if anyone is not aware, water utilities owning undeveloped land in their watersheds is the easiest way for them to maintain water quality while keeping costs down. There is a reason Boston's water comes from central mass and not the rivers that flow near it.

But, frankly, once an area has been significantly cut into there isn't much ecological benefit to that 2 acre patch of wooded land connected to nothing else. It's why I have zero patience for planners touting "cluster development" as anything more than greenwashing. Probably my least favorite development inside of 128 is this part of Milton for exactly that reason. But the damage has been done. That little patch of woods where I dropped the pin is infinitely less ecologically valuable than what's outside, and filling that in should be in on the table.

I entirely understand and am sympathetic to the idea that a Weston or Dover has so much land to add housing, and as others have pointed out that strategy has kept housing costs reasonable in other parts of the country. However, it's a short term boon with devastating long term consequences (and I suspect would not be significantly easier politically than pushing for denser, TOD housing.) Which brings me to one of my favorite planning hot takes: we should be looking at the exact opposite, and strongly discouraging development and even disincorporating municipalities inside 495 that remain at low populations. Give me Dover-Sherborn state forest!