Commenters take note of some serious issues with this particular study, but the general point still stands – culs de sac remove key links from the street network, requiring longer and more circuitous routes to get to the same destinations.\u00a0 Developments of these kind of street patterns are no small part of America’s long history of vehicle miles traveled increasing far faster than<\/a> the rate of population growth.<\/p>\n Diversity: <\/strong>The Washington Post has an article on the changing face of suburbia<\/a> – more socially and economically diverse, and dealing with new sets of problems that many of these communities have never had to deal with before:<\/p>\n Demographers at Brookings say suburbs are developing many of the same problems and attractions that are more typically associated with cities. And cities, in turn, have been drawing more residents who are young and affluent, so the traditional income gap between wealthier suburbs and more diverse cities narrowed slightly.<\/p>\n “The decade brought many cities and suburbs still closer together along a series of social, demographic and economic dimensions,” said the report, titled “State of Metropolitan America.”<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n The other substantive point is about how Americans perceive their surroundings (urban, suburban, rural) compared to how their city and their urban economy actually functions:<\/p>\n The report outlines a decade in which several demographic milestones were passed as the nation’s population topped 300 million midway through. About two-thirds of Americans live in the nation’s 100 largest metropolitan areas, virtually all regions with populations of 500,000 or more.<\/p>\n “We think we’re a small-town nation,” Berube said. “But small towns exist because they’re connected to something bigger, which allows residents to make a living.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n![\"cul-de-sacs\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.alexblock.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/05\/cul-de-sacs.gif?resize=620%2C300\" "\\"cul-de-sacs\\"")
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