Rethinking suburban design: streets v/s alleys in improving network connectivity

ABSTRACT

The notion of an urban-suburban dichotomy is deep-rooted in the literature, which regularly denigrates suburbs and nostalgically g lorifies urban centres. Meanwhile, suburbs have continued to dominate the urbanization process in many regions. This paper does not reject suburbs as an undesirable phenomenon but instead investigates how suburbs can be improved. Taking Abu Dhabi and Dubai as case studies, the article studies the connectivity efficiency of 32 suburban samples. Results reveal that not all suburbs have inefficient connectivity, but there is a room for improvement. Reclaiming alleys could enhance connectivity by 31% in some areas.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. For 9 out of 11 samples areas (shown in Table 3), the number of intersections (streets only) is more than 300/sq.mile, which is considered fairly high. The LEED-ND ‘Street Network’ credit gives one point for 300–400 intersections/sq.mile and 2 points for more than 400 intersections/sq.mile. UN-Habitat recommends about 100 intersections/sq.km, which is 259 intersections/sq.mile. Similarly, Canada’s Ministry of Transport recommends 0.6 intersections/hectare, which is about 155 intersections/sq.mile. After adding alleyways, the number of intersections became more than 600/sq.mile for all except two samples.

Additional information

Funding

Khalifa University of Science & Technology – Competitive Internal Research Award, CIRA-2019-053 [Project number: 8474000184].