In today’s Fall Through the Cracks Friday, we get an interesting view of the American ideas about how to live, build communities, and interact. And, in a surprising twist, we find that the move from the city grid to the cul-de-sac might not have generated the results expected. From the article:

This is where it’s most apparent – from an airplane window – that American ideas about how to live and build communities have changed dramatically over time. For decades, families fled the dense urban grid for newer types of neighborhoods that felt safer, more private, even pastoral. Through their research, Garrick and colleague Wesley Marshall are now making the argument that we got it all wrong: We’ve really been designing communities that make us drive more, make us less safe, keep us disconnected from one another, and that may even make us less healthy.

“What I understand now is that the patterns of places matter enormously,” Garrick says. “Even from 40,000 feet, you can tell the difference between places. It’s not going to give you all the answers, but it’s going to tell you an awful lot about how people live in different places, just by looking at these patterns.”

You can read the full article here on the Atlantic Cities website.