Imagine walking into a grocery store where every aisle is a dead end.

You turn down one, don't find what you need, and have to double back. Then you try another. And another.

Soon, you're not really shopping—you're navigating.

It sounds like a terrible way to design a supermarket. But it made me think about how we design suburban roadway networks.

Most subdivisions are essentially dendritic networks: local streets funnel into collectors, which funnel into arterials. This gives us relatively few routes for moving between destinations.

The result is something strange: two places can be physically very close but functionally far apart.

A house might be 200 feet from another neighborhood, a trail, or a shopping center, but if there's no connection between the two, the trip might require driving a mile or more to reach the destination.

But what if the problem isn't simply that we have too much traffic?

What if we don't have enough routes?

A connected street network doesn't necessarily eliminate congestion, but it gives people more ways to move through an area. It can also make short walking and biking trips much more practical.

And I don't think this necessarily means rebuilding suburbia.

In many cases, a missing connection might be a few hundred feet between two cul-de-sacs, a neighborhood and a trail, or a subdivision and a nearby destination.

So I'm curious:

Is improving connectivity a realistic way to retrofit existing suburbia, or are there important reasons why this analogy breaks down?

I wrote a longer version of this idea here:

What If Supermarkets Were Designed Like Subdivisions with Dead Ends and Cul-de-sacs?

So, North Carolina recently banned parking minimums for new developments.

https://www.wcnc.com/article/money/markets/real-estate/affordable-housing-crisis/north-carolina-ends-mandatory-parking-minimums/275-bc4b1b3e-bd88-452a-9886-fa28b3db274b

Have any other states or cities in North America done something on parking reform of this magnitude in the last year or two ?

I’m the News & Observer reporter who wrote this story.

I spent the week talking with Scott, students and parents, Apex officials and WCPSS. It’s a parking dispute, but it also raises questions about growth, school capacity, property rights and local zoning.

https://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/counties/wake-county/article316992156.html

For decades people have been submitting ideas to reimagine the BQE. On Monday, Zohran Mamdani revealed his plans.

You are invited to participate in a research survey examining what makes a place feel genuine, distinctive, and identifiable, why these qualities matter to people, and how they shape human experiences. The study compares people’s experiences of themed environments to everyday places to better understand what is lost as contemporary places come to look and feel more alike.

The survey takes roughly 10-15 minutes to complete, and you may be eligible to participate if you are 18 years of age or older. Participation is voluntary. For the best experience, we recommend completing this survey on a desktop or laptop rather than a mobile device. 

Please use the link below to take the survey:

https://ufl.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_2mjsMD9C29xsrI2

In this VIDEO we are exploring an unpopular concept.

Can top-down urbanism be good and introduce urban hospitality. Something very different than hostile architecture.

We present a real study case that cam help brake the imagination barrier, that hostile architecture is not the way to go.

Check it out, looking forward to hear what you think.

Hi all! i thought I'd share this on here in case anyone's interested, I've been building a website where you can look up a bunch of relevant statistics for cities across the world. I have a bunch of statistics for the US and Canada from the censuses, but also global data on population, density, pollution, weather, etc., e.g., here you can see a comparison of the density and weather profiles of remarkably similar cities Los Angeles and Sydney

Please let me know if you have any suggestions for features to add! Always looking to improve it.

Edit: link for the above comparison: https://urbanstats.org/comparison.html?longnames=%5B%22Los+Angeles+Metropolitan+Cluster%2C+USA%22%2C%22Sydney+Metropolitan+Cluster%2C+Australia%22%5D&s=4p35LENRdjG3Hi2hc9mc5az

It can also do interactive maps! Here's global cities by density

https://urbanstats.org/mapper.html?settings=H4sIAAAAAAAAA02MMWvDMBBG%2F4q4yQIPztDFxVPHkiyhm8Co0uEcle6ETmoaQv57Ce7Q5ePxPXh32FC26svl9k4cYYYjtipFEjXP5i11bVhhhM70jVURZrhKTRFG0FCpNJjv0FVhhtC1ST5JxMGBA%2FvqOAhHaiRshlY7WsdhLx59GRwbY0z0zS8RWand1nJdD1953S6axl1r8AmXJNv5CUMmXpqcev7EOjg4TNPkwI4m%2B5%2F%2F%2F8u0C%2FtXqT6X5TkflSKpYwuPxy%2BZOtSo%2FAAAAA%3D%3D

I understand the theoretical basis for why sprawl is more inefficient than density but this seems to break down in larger cities. Indianapolis and San Francisco are 2 similarly sized cities. San Francisco is a dense, small, and wealthy place, and Indianapolis is large, sprawling and middle class.

So theoretically that sprawl should come with a higher price tag right? Well, no. Indianapolis will be able to balance the budget and deliver city services at $1.9 Billion This includes large infrastructure improvements mind you.

by comparison even raising tax revenue and the budget to $17 billion apparently still comes with a $300 million deficit in San Francisco.

If anything it looks like that for large cities higher density is associated with a higher, not lower per capita cost. Though in smaller cities there are still benefits to density on finances. It looks like for big cities, policies that increase density will not lead to savings and instead lead to more expenses.

What is happening here? is there diminishing returns? Or is the City of San Francisco really in such a tough geographic position that it really can't make the numbers work on over 8X the tax revenue per person? There is a very real chance that in our lifetime San Francisco could lose its advantage and have that tax revenue regress to the mean. In a long enough time span its almost expected.

EDIT: I'm not talking about suburban municipalities, Rural municipalities, State or federal budgets at all. I'm only comparing central cities and their city budgets and how much money it takes to balance them.

Chuck from Strongtowns has a quick write up looking at Post Falls Idaho. City has grown rapidly in recent years and that doesn't seem to be slowing down. The mayor released a memo showing that there will be financial issues in the coming decade.

Strongtowns article - https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2026-8-24-a-mayor-willing-to-tell-his-city-the-truth

Memo from the mayor - https://drive.google.com/file/d/18D109SkoixgstL_P1apTEx41H2D7vspJ/view

The Problem

We have a structural gap in funding which is driving the City towards insolvency. Tax revenue is not keeping up with rising costs, even for maintaining the current levels of service. The chart below from our recent long-range financial planning study shows the gap over the next 10 years. This forecast assumes we take the 3% levy increase every year and don’t add any new positions, including not hiring new police officers to keep up with growth. Thus, a decline in service levels is already baked into the numbers below by just staying where we are. By 2035, we will have a deficit of $16.8 million PER YEAR. And this is the optimistic scenario. The scenario in which we hire additional staff to keep up with growth is much worse: a deficit of $26.9 million per year.

He goes on to cite rising costs with wages, infrastructure, and cuts from state funding. I will point out, property taxes seem extremely low as the mayor mentions he only pays $572 a year.

I think both articles are worth a read.

Decrepit housing falling into the ocean should not be the only option for students.

Submission statement: The article describes a petition calling for the dissolution of the City of Mableton. The petition cites concerns about higher taxes and duplication of services with Cobb County. The article also mentions that the petition has garnered over 1,800 signatures and that the Georgia General Assembly will review the petition.

I grew up in Brooklyn, right in the heart of urbanism. Everyone I knew walked or took the bus and subway everywhere they needed to go. Some people cycled to a friend's house or something but it wasn't ever a primary mode of travel to go out to places. Probably around half of my friends' families owned a car in their household, which might be used to go shopping on the weekend or to a big family gathering. I didn't even get a driver's license until I was in my early 20s. I know folks who never got a license and they're in their 40s.

No one ever gave any of this a second thought. This was just how things were. You get around however was best or most convenient for that particular trip.

Because of the cost of housing, I eventually moved to an NJ suburb about 15 miles west of Manhattan to buy a house and start a family. For about 10 years, I continued commuting into Manhattan via public transit. It was a lot worse than the subway and bus, but at least it was an option. With that said, in the suburbs, you still need a car for most trips.

Anyway, why is every single urbanist YouTuber from the suburbs? Fake London, Ohio, whatever. It feels super pretentious to have someone who grew up in the suburbs getting driven everywhere by their parents to then get on their high horse to tell everyone else about how great cities are and how hellish the suburbs are, and how cars should be banned.

Again, I grew up in Brooklyn, where many urbanists often point to as a beacon of urbanity, and no one here talked about banning cars, and how everyone should just cycle and take transit everywhere. It's always the transplants from the Midwest who come in and spew all of these talking points ad nauseum from their high horse.

"Affordability Finds a Way"

I have a few colleagues who bought in Baltimore County during the pandemic.

It's just way more affordable than most of DC and it's suburbs, and Delaware is also booming from what I understand.

Some of the government layoffs and back to the office mandates could threaten this, but one of the examples in the article is a neigborhood is right near Johnson Hopkins Medical Center, so you can imagine all the nurses and adminstrators who would love to live as close to their work as possible in a nice neighborhood.

Recently released housing production data shows a surge in Manhattan office conversions through the first half of 2026 (over 10k units in 6 months). While this puts NYC on pace for over 50,000 new units by the end of the year, we should expect conversions to taper off following a June 30th deadline for the full 35-year tax incentive benefit.

What would people say is the biggest fault in Atlantas current urban planning? I always thought of the city as unwalkable and too car dependant, but it really depends on the area. What do people think of ATL Zoning 2.0 and Plan A that have been introduced not too long ago? Are these plans actually going to solve anything or are they just formalities?

Atl Zoning 2.0

Plan A

And given the amount of mixed-use apartment buildings still under construction that I saw, it's going to be one of the densest parts of the city.

Overall Tokyo is more bike-friendly, because most streets are single-lane alleys where street parking is banned, which makes it safe to bike around despite zero bike lanes.

But once you get to major roads in Tokyo the bike lane network is patchy and where they exist they're narrow and shoehorned into the sidewalks.

Now here's some bike infra in Tseung Kwan O (but similar infra is widespread in other HK new towns).

Pic 1: Two-way, concrete planter protected, protected bike lanes. Notice the big concrete planter on the kitty corner--almost like a Dutch protected intersection. The west-facing bike lane is shaded by trees.

Pic 2: Notice there's two underpasses for bikes/peds: one in the left foreground, and another on the right background. Yep. This is a grade-separated, bike/ped-only, roundabout underneath a motor vehicle roundabout. Notice how nearly nonexistent the slope is, making it easy for bikes to go back up after the underpass.

Pic 3: Multiuse path, bike/ped-only bridge over a water channel with boats. Multiuse paths are everywere in these new towns--and they are often more direct than driving due to modal filters.

Pic 4: The same bike/ped bridge, viewed from below. It's even got an elevator, and a fishing pier (to the right).

Pic 5: See that bridge in the distance? They actually grade-separated the pedestrian-only crossing over the bike lane! Also notice how gently the bike lane slopes under the ped bridge.

Pic 6. And of course, they have bus islands.

I've been growing more and more disillusioned with the rhetoric from urbanist YouTube channels and my experience living in NYC. This article highlights some problems I have with urbanist arguments. I'd be interested to hear thoughts.

Neckarbogen is a really cool new neighborhood in Germany that offers a lot of good insights on how we can build better urban neighborhoods.

Frederick is growing — but how do we protect and even enhance its great character? CivicCon is a new program bringing residents & experts together to figure that out. Next meet-up: Thursday, August 27 at Hood College. Free & open to all.

Copied from my post on [r/CanadaUrbanism](r/CanadaUrbanism)

I find that many urbanists (including myself) and urban planning discussions tend to group the U.S. and Canada together. They do face a lot of the same issues with car dependency, but I am here to argue that Canadian suburbia has its own distinct design. I want to be clear that this is an overview as there are exceptions, and I do not want this to be a “Canada good America bad” type thing.

Alright, let's start with what everyone already knows. Canadian suburbs are more compact than their American counterparts, and seem to include more “missing-middle” housing options. In Ontario, we have the Greenbelt restricting suburban sprawl, but even nationwide, the edges of suburban development and urban areas are typically sharp boundaries (e.g. you could be on a road, with suburban development on one side, and farmland on the other). Canada in general is less car centric than the U.S. (though that is not saying much), and Canadian cities tend to have higher transit ridership (though I question how that translates to outer suburban areas of metro areas). Demographics The design of Canadian suburbia is more in line with American Sunbelt development.

Now, lets get to the more obscure stuff that I think deserves more attention in urbanists' discourses, and they are in order of the photos above

1. Permeability & segregation: One notable thing about Canadian suburbia is that many neighbourhoods have connecting pedestrian pathways in cul-de-sac neighbourhoods. Now, you could argue that these pedestrian pathways are there just to “make the best” of an impermeable design, but nonetheless, they do create opportunity for “ease of movement”. Sometimes, these pathways also connect commercial plazas and residential areas. Here is a pic in Grimsby, Ontario of a public walkway connecting two neighbourhood streets

Then, we have this design here which is more of an Ontario thing I think (though I have seen it on Google Maps in the Calgary area). You have neighbourhoods where only certain side streets and collector roads intersect with major arterial roads, and most side streets abut a collector road. This makes the arterial roads feel more “road” like than “stroad” like. The other thing about this is that even of the streets themselves do not connect to the arterial, the sidewalks along both do. So, there is a more direct route for those walking than those driving. Here is an example of this in Ajax, Ontario.

1. Cycling infrastructure: Another thing that I have also noticed is that many suburban Canadian municipalities tend to have a lot of multi-use pathways for both walking and cycling. Now, this is obviously relatively easy politcally as active transportation infrastructure is not getting in the way of cars here, and in this case, its more cycling and pedestrian infrastructure getting into the way of each other. Still, this is passable given how sparse these areas are compared to inner-cities, and they show how cycling in car-centric settings is doable. Here is an example in Oshawa, Ontario.

2. Sidewalk on one side: One area where you could argue Canada is more “carbrained” than the USA generally is in this case, where many side streets in suburban areas either have a sidewalk on one side or no sidewalk at all. For newer developments, this is not too much of an issue given streets tend to be narrower, but the developments built between the 60s and 80s have wider streets and still had this configuration. Even though American sprawl is much more extreme than in Canada, I find there are more American subdivisions that consistantly have sidewalks on both sides (though there are definitely some with no sidewalks). Here is an example in North York, Ontario.

3. Shopping malls: Suburban shopping malls in the U.S. and Canada almost look identical. American malls obviously have more variety, but I would say malls in Canada tend to be more “amenity” based, with the inclusion of grocery stores and even dollar stores (well, just Dollarama). When I am in the States, I noticed that while grocery stores like Target and Walmart may be located within the same plaza as a mall, they will be in a seperate building, and then you wonder, do people shopping at the mall walk to Target/Walmart, or do they drive? Meanwhile, Canada seems to be more like Europe in this case (minus the fact that malls here are still surrounded by a sea of parking, not that that does not exist in Europe either). Here is an example of a Walmart in the Fairview Park Mall in Kitchener, Ontario.

4. Suburban Quebec: This deserves a point on its own. Suburban Quebec very much feels like extreme urban and extreme suburban mixed together. Like, look at this apartment in Hull, Quebec, here with a small setback and a pedestrian path leading to a stroad with no sidewalk lol (As of 2025, a sidewalk was in fact installed) ( https://maps.app.goo.gl/Mpyydk8HmZMQJFGKA ). Or, this multi-lane stroad in Vaudreuil-Dorion, Quebec (which is actually designated as part of a major highway) where they added a multi-use trail on one side and street-oriented development on the other (https://maps.app.goo.gl/URkQKbAUyDLTDbP66) That is a representation of suburban Quebec I think lol.

I got REALLY bored and decided to make a faux Mayoral campaign focused on using the 12 CityLink buses to improve Baltimore through transit orientated development. This plan would include things like getting food access into west, northwest and northeast Baltimore; Medical access into the northeast; more housing and many other things. It's very technical but highly recommend viewing the "Master Plan" doc and reading the plan English summaries at the end of each part (btw can anyone tell me why r/urbanplanning removed this???)