The long and short of Suburban Streets in the Sun

1) Most housing subdivisions in the USA have a street layout with "long block" streets going north-south and "short end block" streets going east-west.

2) This was probably decided so that every house would have good light for a photograph (at some time of day)  to sell the house in the newspaper advertisements or "where ever"...

3) However, in this configuration, there is nowhere you can park your car so that it is most always in the shade.

4) If the subdivision "long block" streets went east-west and the "short end block" streets went north-south, there would almost always be shade between the houses to park the car in the shade.

5) additionally the houses would shade each other from the sun and elements more on a "long block" east-west street than on a "long block" north-south street, leading to additional energy saving in both winter and summer (most weather moves east-west)


copyright (c) 2019
William Schaeffer