Challenging the Status Quo: The Case for Celebrating Different Developments
Culdesac Tempe, a car-free community in Arizona. (Image source: waves7 on Google Maps.)
For the past 80 years, development in North America has been shaped by a suburban experiment so pervasive that it now feels like the only way to build. But this approach — dictated by rigid zoning laws, parking mandates and car-centric infrastructure — is a radical departure from the traditional, incremental growth that shaped cities for centuries.
Instead of interconnected neighborhoods, we've built isolated subdivisions, oversized roadways, and commercial districts that separate daily needs from where people live. This pattern has strained local economies, made car dependency unavoidable, and eroded the social fabric of our communities. Now, as cities struggle with mounting infrastructure costs, failing retail corridors and housing shortages, more and more people are questioning whether this approach is sustainable. The signs of failure are hard to ignore.
Yet, when a project dares to break this mold, it faces intense scrutiny. Ironically, these are the very projects we should be studying — and even celebrating. Culdesac Tempe, a car-free community in the Phoenix metro area, is one such project.
Challenging the Status Quo
We’re dedicated to building people-first cities by combining technology, real estate, and human connection to improve our quality of life. By removing parking and shifting towards micro-mobility, we create ample space for people to experience life at their front door and live in a vibrant community designed specifically for them, not cars. — Culdesac
Since its construction, Culdesac has drawn disproportionate criticism from two groups: those who can't imagine a car-free community in a city like Phoenix, and those who dismiss the project as more of a playground than a practical, scalable model.
It’s easy for those accustomed to car dependency to question a development that intentionally removes cars from the equation. What happens when you leave Culdesac? How do you get around then? But these questions aren’t unique to Culdesac; they’re asked in cities like New York, Boston and Philadelphia, where many people navigate daily life without a personal vehicle.
As for those who think Culdesac is just a flashy experiment, there’s a good reason Culdesac is in a league of its own: Developments like it are nearly impossible to replicate. Creating something like Culdesac requires reforming parking mandates, relaxing zoning restrictions to be more permissive, and challenging the entrenched systems that prioritize stroads, strip malls and parking lots. Without those changes, the process would be prohibitively expensive. Those added costs don't just burden developers — they are ultimately passed on to future residents, who pay the price for restrictive policies.
Culdesac isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution for cities rethinking the suburban development pattern, but it proves there’s a growing appetite for something different. “We need more housing and land-use experimentation, not less,” said Kevin DeGood, director of infrastructure policy at the Center for American Progress. “And bold experiments like Culdesac show there is real demand for alternatives.”
The next time a development like Culdesac comes before a planning commission, let’s resist the instinct to criticize it just because it’s different. Instead, let’s ask whether it offers a viable alternative to the broken development patterns we’ve inherited. If we want stronger, more resilient places, we need to support — and even champion — those willing to take the risk of building differently. And in the meantime, we can help by removing the regulatory barriers that make them so difficult to build in the first place.
Edward Erfurt is the Chief Technical Advisor at Strong Towns. He is a trained architect and passionate urban designer with over 20 years of public- and private-sector experience focused on the management, design, and successful implementation of development and placemaking projects that enrich the tapestry of place. He believes in community-focused processes that are founded on diverse viewpoints, a concern for equity, and guided through time-tested, traditional town-planning principles and development patterns that result in sustainable growth with the community character embraced by the communities which he serves.