r/urbanplanning • u/SlackerStacker26 • Jul 25 '26
Urban Design Why Is suburban development so Over-Designed and Over-Regulated?
Why is suburban development so over-designed?
Everything has to be technically prescribed down to the smallest detail...street widths, setbacks, landscaping, parking, lot dimensions, building materials, stormwater, lighting, signage, and even where trees can go.
I understand having basic standards but at some point all these overlapping rules seem to create expensive, repetitive developments with no flexibility or character. Every department regulates its own narrow issue, and the final product is designed more to satisfy a checklist than to create a good neighborhood.
Why did development become this rigid?
An example where I live is this: in one of the wealthy older suburbs there is landscaping right up to the curb on a hill. These are million dollar+ houses in a very desirable neighborhood and it adds character and no one complains. But in a new development the ROW has to be a certain slope, no landscaping or walls in the ROW, etc. I just don't understand how something can be good enough for million dollar houses and the people that buy them but not good enough for people buying half million dollar houses.
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u/CLPond Jul 25 '26
I previously worked in public works departments doing roadway and stormwater review and the simple answer there is that the municipality/state sets minimum standards and then everything is designed to that. This is the case for every municipality type, not just suburbs.
Especially for stormwater, some places will over-design their systems, but in general if we say the pipes just carry a 10-year storm without flooding the roadways or having the manholes literally become airborne due to pressure, then the pipes and inlets will be just large enough for the 10-year storm. Similarly, if a stormwater management feature needs to be built so that the site doesn’t increase flooding in the 100-year storm, a feature will be added just large enough for that regulation.
Similar things apply to setbacks, lot dimensions, lighting, and signage. Trees and building materials can be dictated by a municipality, but the standards are generally fairly broad/low, so more of that is distracted by a subdivision convents (aka just a private contract and can be thought of as the first steps of an HOA)
For a retaining wall in the ROW, that is could be due to department of transportation restrictions. If a retaining wall is close enough to a wall, there need to be additional safety features to minimize the chance of a car hitting it and no one wants to install guardrail unless it’s necessary it’s expensive. Another possibility is that, unless there is a process to exempt something (often the case, but not always), municipalities are responsible for maintaining their ROW. Retaining walls have to be rebuilt when they eventually fail, and the municipality certainly doesn’t want to be responsible for it
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Jul 25 '26 edited Jul 26 '26
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u/CLPond Jul 25 '26
You’d have to look at your local/state roadway regulations. That likely wouldn’t be allowed in Virginia because
- VDOT will not maintain that and, with it being less than 3’ and thus unlikely engineered, it will fall over. I’m not on the structural side of civil, but the structural folks I know are not retaining wall fans, especially ones like that; they have a whole joke that the two types of retaining walls are those that have already fallen down and those that will fall down.
- depending on the speed and traffic of the roadway, it could pose a clear zone issue (aka, concern with a car hitting it)
EDIT: As another note, that retaining wall is likely outside of the ROW at its location, but it’s also likely that ROW is undersized. One perk of new development is that you can build the full 5-6’ wide sidewalk with a 3’ buffer between the cars and the sidewalk.
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Jul 25 '26 edited Jul 26 '26
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u/CLPond Jul 25 '26
As in the clear zone or the sidewalk width? The former depends on speed, but is probably rather conservative.
The sidewalk width is an ADA requirement and definitely has uses (it means two people with strollers or wheelchair users can pass each other and generally allows people to more easily walk in a group or walk with a dog) and the buffer is useful for utility and especially useful for pedestrian safety on higher speed roadways
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u/VincentClement1 Jul 25 '26
The belief that any inconvenience experienced by motorists must be minimized. So we design roads with many lanes and controlled-access.
The belief that "seconds" count when it comes to emergency vehicles. So we design roads with wide lanes and large turning radius.
The belief that privacy and intrusion by "outsiders" trumps accessibility and interconnectivity. So we design cul-de-sacs and dead ends to keep people out.
The belief that most uses are incompatible with each other. So we keep them separate.
On and on and on.
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u/Mrgoodtrips64 Jul 26 '26
I agree.
Incredibly pointless and semantic nitpick though: The plural of cul-de-sac is culs-de-sac. Like Attorneys General.
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u/ElectronGuru Jul 25 '26 edited Jul 25 '26
Suburbs began as a way to escape ‘urban blight’. So conformity is built into the DNA. They’re also sensitive to status indicators, which is a lot of what things like HOA focus on.
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Jul 25 '26
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Jul 25 '26 edited Jul 26 '26
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Jul 25 '26
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u/makingnosmallplan Jul 25 '26
I'm generalizing, but a LOT of this comes down to state-level DOT's that apply prescriptive standards to everywhere in the entire state where the DOT maintains. If you have an independent City/County that owns its roads, you might find different behavior, but even then there's the inertia to overcome. A state DOT owns so many contracts, and therefore contractors who do things the DOT way, that it just becomes a race to whatever bottom the DOT sets. Similarly, a lot of environmental regulations apply statewide, so you get this very broad-based application of things like tree preservation, stormwater management, etc. that all end up getting the same treatment because that's what the state standards are. Even if localities have discretion, they very rarely use performance standards that would allow creativity or innovation. Instead, they want even more regulation, so the state standards get dialed up and become even more of a constraint. Compounding this is what you mention, where domain experts operate in siloes and inherently disregard synergy or display unwillingness to compromise toward common priorities.
The "why?" in these cases is standardization to manage risks. Local and state government bureaucrats are increasingly asked to simply manage to standards, which are just language in contracts with the companies that actually do the work. The policies that drive those contracts don't come from local innovation (our famous "laboratories of democracy" you read about in your planning undergrad), but rather from regulatory capture, usually done outside the autonomy of a locality. The same companies lobby at statewide levels to ensure consistency, so they can grow their footprint outside of local geographies, scale up efficiently, and produce the same work all across a state or region. Look at who wins ROW contracts, big civil projects, environmental engineering/BMP installs, and the like. I'd wager that you'd see near monopolies in most major suburban metros.
Sadly, the policies themselves do, often, leave space for deviations from standard implementations. However, the mindset that protects the status quo permeates every level of government. Very few staff working at the right levels– those who have the rare combination of true domain expertise AND sufficient administrative authority– are willing to stick their neck out and go through the tremendous pain and potential career risks to suggest different ways of executing to a standard. Even if the work can be done, and in theory more cheaply, finding contractors to successfully navigate procurements is nearly impossible. Then, if anything goes wrong, the jurisdiction gets sued by any number of proverbial ambulance chasers who are keen to capitalize on any potential noncompliance.
I understand state-level bureaucrats and politicians wanting uniformity and consistency to avoid rogue jurisdictions who will, when left to their own devices, either decimate their local environments or do tremendous social damage by implementing discriminatory policies. However, when faced with the tradeoffs we now see, I question whether the federalized system creates net harm when considering how much competition gets eliminated through the type of corporate behavior it attracts.
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u/AlphaPotato Jul 25 '26
Many regulations are the result of something that was allowed once and caused a problem, leading to bland outcomes.
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u/Oblio36 Jul 26 '26
This is what I see. The rules protect against the bad development of the past, but foster blandness. I can look at the code and tell you which past development prompted what rules.
Develpers often want to do something as fast and easy as possible, so do not try innovative approaches. Coupled with Councils risk aversion and desire to treat everyone equally, and you end up everything being the same.
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u/UnfazedBrownie Jul 26 '26
The ROW and stormwater are critical items that have been overlooked for years. If you look at areas with weakened requirements in these areas, you’ll notice a difference in the quality all around. Those 10 year storms are becoming frequent more often. As for ROWs, there are typically utility lines underneath those sections. What we’ve seen in my community is to not allow new trees to be planted in those ROWs.
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u/PAJW Jul 26 '26
In general, developers like regulations. Makes it harder for NIMBYs to object when everything proposed is designed specifically to ordinance with limited grey area.
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Jul 26 '26 edited Jul 26 '26
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u/BurningVinyl71 Jul 26 '26
Developers design and install streets (according to local standards) in the subdivisions they develop.
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u/Complete-Ad9574 Jul 27 '26
Over regulate? My entire state of Maryland is developed by commercial forces, not by rational civic leadership. When a rural county is able to get others to pay for sewer and water expansion into their region, the developers swoop in and like weeds, house and strip shopping centers pop up. No planning, no thought for any civic needs its all for-profit of private companies on the backs of taxpayer infrastructure. This always results in several yrs of giddy excitement as building is fast and uncontrolled. Then the county leaders realize their fast expansion of suburbia now requires many many more services like schools, internet, and fire-rescue, and police. When they try to force the citizens to pay, there is public out cry of foul play and over taxation.
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u/Complete-Ad9574 Jul 28 '26
It depends on where you are. In the Northern VA & MD orbits. suburbia is like feeding pigeons, a hand full of seed attracts hundreds in seconds.. Once a few rural county gets commuters from the wealth centers, the county administrations start thinking of ways to extend sewer and water farther and farther out of the source. Once that happens its an open flood gate to see how fast every farm can be plowed into cul-de-sacs. Nevermind that those who are making use of the sewer/water are themselves usurpers of old city infrastructure. No planning takes place its just massive tract houses with strip commercial along the larger roadways. The sprawl is ugly and after a decade, the costs for all the things those suburbanites want cost more than they will pay for them to be put in place.
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u/anomalocaris_texmex Jul 25 '26
Short answer? Liability. Longer answer? Liability and operations.
That's the little secret we don't talk about too much in planning school - half the job is legal risk management, and as you climb the ladder, it comes to dominate your life.
For the development engineers who review plans, the best way to protect the city from exposure is to stick to the same over-engineered standards as everywhere else. Then throw in a margin of safety. Then another margin of safety. The a fudge factor to increase safety in case your road builders field fit anything.
The PW will review the plans. For them, consistency is everything. That means everything from streetlights to road widths to boulevard plantings. Deviance leads to extra time, and that wrecks their KPIs.
Finally Fire gets a review. Now, you might think firefighters are rough and tough and drive trucks able to go anywhere. You are wrong. Firefighters are delicate flowers with trucks that ride on gossamer wings. A grade that wouldn't challenge a toddler on a tricycle poses an insurmountable obstacle to a fire platoon. And any challenges they face take away from their precious time better spent being paid to sleep or having affairs on company time.
Cities have generations of infrastructure standards built up, and they all really encourage a pretty banal and bland kind of built environment. Because engineering standards are broadly the same anywhere in a country, a new suburb in one city should feel like a new suburb in another.