you ever feel like you're just going in
circles so this is Hall Slee a
still-developing subdivision in
Midlothian Virginia this place won the
National homebuilders award in 2017 for
best master-planned community and there
are a ton of cul-de-sacs
one-two-three-four
let's just go to the map save some time
in cul-de-sacs are everywhere they're a
symbol of suburban sprawl but they
aren't an accident they're physical
evidence of how one federal agency
shaped the suburbs in ways that we're
still grappling with today English
suburban plans inspired early suburbs in
the United States like Radburn New
Jersey which offered a unique plan
founded in 1929 it was designed to be
car friendly but it introduced State
Street that served more like an alleyway
or service road it was almost a
prototype for the cul-de-sac cars
traveled and parked in back of houses
not in front people walked to and from
the train via foot paths that were car
free the red burn wasn't totally
finished today you can see the footpaths
that still provide a pedestrian network
for residents
but out of those ideas it was radburn's
cul-de-sac not it's footpaths
that spread thanks to an agency with the
power to do it in 1929 the Great
Depression crushed the housing market
the bus dragged on for years a decline
of 92 percent from 1928 but due to the
stimulation of the National Housing Act
1935 presents a different picture before
1934 mortgages required anywhere from 30
to 50 percent down paid off as quickly
as 5 years the new Federal Housing
Administration or FHA insured mortgages
for lenders shrinking down payments to
20% and extending the mortgage to the
now-standard
30 years all that made home buying
affordable and kicked off a housing boom
for purchasing and construction this
tidal wave of new construction is an
important contribution to the economic
rebuilding of America home ownership is
the basis of a half a contented family
life and you're probably like how does
any of this connect cul-de-sacs or
suburban design the thing is is that the
FHA wanted to ensure that all these
investments they were making were
relatively safe investments so to do
that they ranked and rated neighborhoods
and homes and then they created
guidelines for those ratings and that is
where things get complicated
some FHA guidelines we'd see today is
roughly positive like minimum property
requirements think minimum standards for
plumbing and foundation of new houses to
guarantee they weren't just junk mostly
good except for the asbestos lots of
asbestos on the other end of the
spectrum the FHA explicitly endorsed
segregation as a measure of housing
quality ie segregation equals good
neighborhood
this underwriting manual puts it really
clearly if a neighborhood is to retain
stability it is necessary that
properties shall continue to be occupied
by the same social and racial classes so
these guidelines were in the gamut from
mundane to appalling but developers
would be taking a huge risk to ignore
the FHA since these loans sold houses
somewhere in the middle of the spectrum
the FHA's recommendations also included
city planning
they started with car friendly minimum
street widths and then expanded in
bulletins like planning profitable
neighborhoods the FHA laid out ideal
suburban plans which were clearly
labeled bad or good they drew from
models like Radburn but focused on the
car and left out the pedestrians grid
plans were definitively bad other plans
with curvilinear or winding roads were
good that included cul-de-sacs this FHA
labeled bad plan shows why curb streets
really did make sense sometimes the
dotted lines show topography like Hills
a grid plain would have required a ton
of construction to work around the
landscape the good plan the curvilinear
one reduces construction costs and it's
just nicer to look at but these plans
also insisted on a car centered vision
of the neighborhood with cul-de-sacs
designed to slow down vehicles and limit
through traffic while also guaranteeing
that cars were necessary to get around
this bad plan would have worked well for
public transportation and city services
or walking commute but developers
couldn't risk bad plans the good plan
was the only safe option if they wanted
their houses to sell plans drafted the
bad way were revised to fit the FHA's
vision of the good life that was a
combination of financial coercion and a
quickly evolving sense of what a suburb
should be listen I played kickball and
cul-de-sacs they have a lot of
advantages they really do slow down
through traffic they create a sense of
community they just have a lot of things
going for them and this subdivision here
doesn't have much to do with those out
loaded FHA guidelines but it does exist
in a culture that those guidelines
created the cul-de-sac it crowded out a
million other good ideas ideas that
could have had a different vision of the
suburbs ideas that weren't all about
this today some suburbs are changing the
plan there's even a way to make existing
cul-de-sacs more walkable but it's a
little strange that so many places are
still beholden to the old FHA's vision
of the one good life
this is a proposed black subdivision
near Atlanta from a 1948 FHA plan the
plan included a planting strip to serve
as a visible boundary between white and
black neighborhoods in the same plan the
FHA plotted very elegant curvilinear
streets and cul-de-sacs
that's it for this episode about the
suburbs let's read some comments from
the last episode which was about
Manhattan's grid these people were smart
they knew it would be difficult to build
out a model of the city and Minecraft if
it was made out of circles essentially
the philosophy they had they wanted easy
development very very mind crafty of
them but cities like Boston or London
have greater charm and uniqueness but
are a pain to navigate this is the big
debate at the crux of the video which
one do you prefer that uniqueness or
navigability that's it for this episode
we hope to see you in the next one which
actually features a lot of contributions
from Fox's YouTube subscribers
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