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What children see as they grow up becomes normal, and they are likely to recreate that “normal” as adults. Multiple generations of your family lived on cul-de-sacs. I grew up far away from both sets of grandparents, so after college, I moved far away from my parents. That’s just what people did in my mind.

A friend told the story of a family of women who moved in next door. There was a grandmother, a mother, and several young daughters, but no men. One of the girls wandered into his garage one morning where he was working and asked him why in the world he lived with his wife and children. That wasn’t normal to her. My guess is that she grew up and had a family that was normal in her eyes.

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Reminds me of when my father was shelling peas from the garden and a neighbor kid asked why he put them in there (the pod). Your story is better though.

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Another home run for Arnold Kling. One of his longest hits of the year — into the upper bleachers. Look at him as he casually jogs the bases: almost no emotion; just another day for him at “work.”

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You mean "communitarianism" rather than "communism."

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You are describing something that is quite akin to "cohousing," originally developed in Europe and now implemented in a few spots in the USA. Muir Commons in Davis, CA was one of the first. https://www.cohousing.org/directory/muir-commons-2/

N.b . Autocorrect changes "cohousing" to "confusing." Lol

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3dEdited

This is not communism and not socialism either. Just a normal healthy community. Please do not associate the bloodiest regime of 20th century with healthy family and community .

In fact communities suffered greatly under every communist regime

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Many people want this, some people have created it, but many others don’t want it because they’re concerned about how the rest of the “commune” might raise their kids. Undesirable politics, the wrong snacks, unapproved media diet — I once babysat someone else’s child (for free, as a favor, at some inconvenience) and let all the kids watch Frozen while I dealt with my baby, and the mother was very upset.

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Russ Roberts has an old story about his wife meeting a friend/acquaintance outside of a store, then leaving the friend in charge of her child in his push-chair while she ran back into the store to buy some item she'd forgotten. When she returned, the child was wearing an expression of great happiness. She was not pleased when the friend told her that he'd been crying, so she'd given him some chocolate to shut him up.

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I grew up with a cul-de-sac. My kids grew up with a cul-de-sac. The two kids who have bought homes live in cul-de-sacs. For one of the kids this was a decisive factor, for the other child I don't think it was a factor other than the desire to not live on a road with busy traffic.

My simple observation is that it is easier as a parent to let kids play outside and have some degree of autonomy if one has a cul-de-sac, or at least a neighborhood laid out with boundaries that limit traffic and the movement of people. Consequently, I think condos and townhomes impose a tax on children - adding multiple children and keeping them indoors is stressful to parents. SFH suburban neighborhoods invite families to have more children.

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I do applaud Dr Kling's recognition of the social benefits spillover from single family residential communities, I just hope the YIMBYs don't track him down and demand a nuclear waste dump be built on his cul-de-sac.

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Oh, and a third controversial claim is that cul-de-sacs are good for society. I think you've made a good argument. But there is a culturally left viewpoint that cul-de-sacs are racist because (they claim with at least some evidence) their original intent was to keep poor black people from driving through your white neighborhood. In my own town, which is extremely left progressive, there is an official "connector road" policy which bans new developments from having cul-de-sacs. I should add that NO ONE in the neighborhoods wants those roads to connect (including me), but then, the progressives in charge respond by saying "you're racist"

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Cul-de-sacs are desirable to home owners for many reasons so I find the racism argument to be wanting. And interestingly, one of the new benefits of cul-de-sacs is they greatly reduce speeding. Neighborhoods built with through roads end up spending gobs of money to install speed barriers to improve safety. Do the same people who hate cul-de-sacs also argue speed barriers are racist.

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"Why not have housing developments that are for young families? In order to move in, you must have at least one child under the age of 10?"

The biggest problem with this notion is what you do with families who no longer have a child under the age of 10. Are those families forced to move? If not, your development quickly starts to be a regular housing area with mostly people without kids at home. That's not a problem with the 55+ communities as none of those folks are getting younger.

You can keep cycling families, hoping that those without young kids anymore move out and only allow those with young kids to replace them, but that still leaves you with the changing cast of neighbors issue and a lingering issue of people without kids living there as a possibly increasing proportion over time.

It seems that it would be nearly impossible to match your ideal cul de sac (which sounds wonderful!) of families moving in, letting their kids grow up together, then having the same people be there to be grandparents, with any sort of planning.

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No, you would not make people move out. There would be some natural tendency to move out once their children move away.

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I should point out that a housing developer that started a new housing development with this in mind, building in many cul de sacs, light commercial space for a child care center and the like could do well. They could even do well to offer discounted prices for families with young children on initial purchases of single homes (i.e. you can't buy 20 homes at 15% off because you are a reseller who happens to have a kid) to start the development off as super kid friendly. That seems to me to be a very clever market innovation. I just don't think it could ever be a continuing rule for standardizing the community like it is for the 55+ living style communities is all. Without being heavy handed it seems unlikely that one could keep the preponderance of people living there of the "we have small kids" variety since people don't move out of houses very often. There is nothing wrong starting out that way, however, and that could be a really good innovation.

I fear I came across a little more negative in my previous comment than I intended.

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3dEdited

Even though older people will stay, if only people with kids can move in the neighborhood will be skewed towards kids [compared to neighborhoods without restrictions on moving in without kids.]

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That doesn't follow. People spend ~18-30 adult years with kids (closer to 18-24 typically), and 30+ years without kids. It will only skew towards kids if people move out frequently after their kids are out of the house. If none of the original families move out until they die, within 30 years the community has zero children. (If all the families that buy have their youngest as a 9 year old, within 9 years there are zero children.) If only half the original families move out when their youngest leaves the house you still skew childless after a few decades.

There's a whole Markov process involved here, but since all children leave the house (one way or the other) and people have no kids longer than they have kids the neighborhood will always skew childless unless there is a fairly high turnover.

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My Google search says median tenure is 12-13 years. So most homes will change over to families with kids even if some with kids leave and an increasing percentage are very long-term, mostly without kids

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It seems like you are just trying to be a jerk but I've added a clarification that maybe will satisfy you.

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I've lived long enough in my Maryland neighborhood to see a complete roll over in the families that live in it. The generation of my kids and those of my initial neighbors have aged out. Since our kids became adults, about half of the parents have moved out, with younger families moving in. A some point my wife and I will sell and I suspect a family with school age children will move in.

I've also seen 55+ communities built and advertised, but then the school bus stops in these neighborhoods to pick up kids and drop them off. It actually surprises me such communities can be advertised! It is ageism, which I guess is legal until the Supreme Court says otherwise. What is obvious, is such communities cannot ban kids, and so I'm not surprised to see families with kids living in such communities.

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I am a bit curious as to whether the life cycle is more compressed in some areas rather than others. I could see more urban spots having high turnover in areas with really good schools vs the hip night life section of town or something like that. My experience in rural PA is rather the opposite of yours, where people tend to stay put in their houses for a really long time. Even in the small towns frequently the same people have been living in the same house since I was little. I suspect the difference is in the relative value of the property ("We can downsize and make a fair sized retirement amount") and what people are moving to. I might move from our suburban house with a good school to a more rural spot once the kids are out of the house, for instance, but wouldn't do the reverse. On the other hand, if I lived in NoVA still it would be a choice of one suburban area or another, so if my house was convenient to where I worked and I was ok with the neighborhood I wouldn't bother moving.

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A subsidized housing development near me was planned something like this. Only families and seniors with the stipulation of the seniors helping the young families. Problem was the seniors got older and needed more help than they gave.

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Yea, I suspect that most communities/neighborhoods have a life cycle they go through, and nothing can really be done to correct for that. A good school district attracts people with kids more, but if it is a nice area for other reasons people tend to stay even after their kids move out, for example. So long as people like to live in the same house they have been living in, children move out of their parent's place when they start their own families, and people live long enough that the majority of their adult lives is sans children in the home the cycle seems to push towards fewer children in neighborhoods over time.

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While this is a great idea, and more cul de sacs should be encouraged, “Communist” is a terrible word, meaning Communism. Communes need a different word to distinguish them, tho communitarianism isn’t quite accurate as well as being hard to use and pretty pompous sounding. Gated communities with a Home Ownership Association are already around, and are fairly elitist, and usually opposed by the non-protected majority. Yet support for building cul de sacs remains a good idea.

I’d guess there are few nice cul de sacs where a majority of the owners have no cars, and far too much Urban Planning is oriented towards reducing to ending car ownership, essentially reducing freedom. Not mentioned is that often a big developer will buy a tract of land, and design and build he streets, with the city taking ownership later.

It would be good for the state govt to offer a special second mortgage to married young people with kids so as to buy multi-bedroom house in a new, ET-like community complex. Perhaps especially offering tax cut benefits to builders, based on how many houses they built in the prior years. Including support for cul de sacs but also meandering limited access roads.

There is a nice photo of big blocks in Norway, with big thin buildings surrounding a communal central courtyard (on X). Such central courtyards become the playgrounds of the local kids and the parents get to know each other while watching the kids play. Very nice.

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Zoning already creates family friendly housing, few singles want to own a 4+ bedroom house. Most development these days tends to be Master Planned Communities with a school, retail, amenities, etc all planned out.

Most communities like a mix of housing types.

55+ housing usually is very good for the tax base (they pay taxes but don't require schooling) and gives people a way to downsize without leaving the community entirely. It's also a good place to put grandma if she wants to move closer to the grandkids.

The one thing none of these communities want is cheap rental apartments. If they have apartments they will usually be condos, luxury rentals, or zoned 55+.

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The converse is that kid-only housing is bad for the tax base because young families use local government resources on net while seniors live off the federal government. The goal of local government is always to maximize the tax base while minimizing expenditures on services.

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Standalone purchased housing (as opposed to apartment rentals) large enough to provide for children, especially in upper-middle class areas, is usually what most communities want and imo is likely the one exception to your rule. And even if not as positive for net revenues is close enough.

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Correct, though note that school funding has become more state based lately. I think Andy's comment that local governments still seek middle to upper middle class families is true, which is why we see lots of building of those type of homes and very little starter homes.

The education lobby is a huge power in local government and they are going to want growing headcount.

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The design of American housing developments is awful. This has been a hot button of mine for 50 years, but I would bet that if someone actually did build what needs to be built to achieve the beautiful environment described in this piece...few would buy it. The herd is convinced of other arrangements.

Nice piece for a Monday. Thanks much.

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"This sort of housing discrimination is legal." As it--and other sorts--should be! Freedom of association is widely disrespected these days.

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Note that I am not sure the cul-de-sac is a key. We raised our family on a cul-de-sac, with the primary advantage of less crime (only one exit), but it was not socially advantageous. After 50 years, we have a new batch of children again with a better outcome of kids taking over the street.

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How would it be received if you titled the post your Nazi Vision? There would be uproar. Why so tone deaf about communism and Marxism?

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It's a nice vision. I wouldn't restrict the communes to families with young children. I'd allow young couples who want to have children - the older families could help them get started.

Of course, it's politically infeasible. The reason for the over-55 communities is that they're (relatively) rich and pay taxes, without needing more school space. A commune of young families would be the opposite, and existing towns wouldn't want them.

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