Real-life Inverted Cul-de-sac

​I recently discovered that in my town there are a handful of neighborhood developments with an inverted cul-de-sac. Residents were talking about it in a local social group online because it’s been built in a peculiar and unconventional way. The neighborhood has a cul-de-sac but it’s an undrivable street and the houses are accessed via an alleyway. The company doing the development apparently built non-functioning roads for emergency access only, but they weren’t built to handle daily traffic.

People were complaining that there were giant boulders blocking the roads and posted pictures of signs saying “No Vehicles Permitted” and were questioning what was even the point. Residents of those streets commented that it was purposefully done by the HOA and that they’ve had neighborhood block parties and kids can ride their bikes without worrying about traffic. A number of people who don’t live there were complaining about the situation, but the neighborhood residents themselves had mixed feelings about the layout.

Some disliked that the HOA fines them if they park on the street in front of their house. One homeowner claimed that she and her neighbors would prefer for the HOA to just pave it properly for vehicles, but another neighbor claimed he was a member of the HOA board and that most owners are happy with it being a car-free zone. Apparently the builders of several of the homes mentioned that a playground or other community features would be going in later (which never happened). It seems as though the cul-de-sacs weren’t initially intended to be paved but because mortgage companies were refusing to back the loans they put a paved road in.
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Considering the criticism these neighborhoods are getting perhaps one way to improvve the design would be to put in a wider more functional “alley” road and no “fake” cul-de-sac but instead a common green. It seems that giving the false impression of the ability to drive a car there is creating frustration. Additionally if the developers had made good on promises to put in a playground and maintain community spaces perhaps all the residents would be more on board. 

Do you have an alternative idea on how to improve this neighborhood? Email us at [email protected] and share your ideas. If you know of another pocket neighborhood with an inverted cul-de-sac we'd love to hear about it and perhaps write a future blog post on it!