I was going to say, it seems like some pretty minor changes would make a huge difference. But with no sidewalks, parks or cut throughs from the beginning, it’s all private property.

I brought my kids up in a more urban environment. Not quite urban enough to replace cars, but there’s a lot available at a walk. A few years back we visited family in the suburban Midwest and my kids tried to walk to a convenience store. Wow

That sounds lovely. I wish our planners did it that way.

Here in my part of the US we do build with shops outside of neighborhoods. The problem is that these shops are rarely prime real estate so the stores that move in are rarely something you want to walk to

For example, outside my neighborhood now is

A convenience store, A dry cleaners, a sports bar, a military surplus store, an office for a business that builds floating docks, a tow truck company, some kind of repair shop for hydraulics, a Wendy's, a burger king, and a bait-and-tackle store

Except not all of that is on my side of the street. If you left my neighborhood and went north you would run into the stores. Then there is a road, some more stores, and then another neighborhood. But that road between the two lines of stores is a major road. 8 lanes where I am. (8 lanes all-together. 4 east, 4 west)

So yeah, I could walk to the sports bar because it is close, but also I have to cross 8 lanes of traffic. And the other neighborhood could walk to the convenience store, but they also have to cross 8 lanes of traffic

On paper it's ideal. In reality not so much

Sometimes you luck out and you'll get a mom-and-pop sandwich shop or a small grocery store or something, but most of the time it's dance studios or a place to buy used vacuum cleaners. Just random, lower-rent shit.

If you keep walking you can find more useful things. There's a Starbucks and a doughnut shop close by. If I wanted to ride my bike there is a grocery store.. but that just means crossing more main roads. Not 8 lanes, but still. Not 2 lanes with 25mph traffic either. It's like 45mph 4-lane roads

And of course this is more difficult if you have kids. I'm not sure I'd feel safe riding my bike to the store with my young child. So if we need to go to the store, or even the playground, we drive. It's not that it's so far we can't walk, it's that the walk is sketchy

If you want to walk and shop, we have places built specifically for that. You drive there, park, get out, and then the next like 4 or 8 blocks or whatever is designed just to be for walking and shopping.

It's not an easily fixable problem through. Unless you're going to tear down a bunch of houses this is just kind of how it is

Then again, with everything costing $1000, I'm not sure who's walking to buy anything. I do well for myself but I'm still not going to walk to a sports bar regularly and buy a $9 hamburger and spend $7 on drinks. So really, I don't even care anymore.

Maybe. You are on the right track, but every bus stop is time robbed from people who are not getting on/off at that stop. Stopping at the entry to every cul-de-sac is too much. So really your 200 meters is 400 meters - the bus should only stop every 400 meters. (the 400 meter is a simple number of discussion, but any book covering this will have several chapters covering all the different trade offs, exceptions and the like: go read the book before arguing the number)

Linear density is what matters. Large yards that are deep but narrow are just fine if you want a large yard. Transit needs to pick up/drop off within a reasonable distance of the door without unduly delaying other passengers. A wide yard is a much larger problem, a narrow yard that just has with width of a bedroom and stairs+hall allows for plenty of density for great transit.

A hospital, 10 floor apartment complex, or big shopping malls are places high density, but if they are a long distance down a dead end (cul-de-sac) they are harder for transit to serve than straight street in a suburb despite the much lower density in the suburb.

This is important to remember. People asking for density for the sake of density too often end up with something that doesn't help the cause they want. People who understand what they really want can fight for that, while allowing for less ideal things that are still close enough.

I don't need a large yard, but there are a lot of nice things about having a large yard that I want. Ideally I want my front door to be on Times Square New York City, with a side door to a Caribbean sea beach, a backdoor to livestock pasture, and the other side a mountain - this is of course impossible, but if you don't recognize why each of the above would be desirable you need to learn more about the world. Since it is impossible I have to compromise, but the less I compromise the better.

I don't know why a yard would require a cul-de-sac.