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Privatizing the fringe: patterns of private streets in a slow growth region

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Abstract

Recent studies of private streets have focussed on urban and suburban areas experiencing rapid growth; however, private road networks are also proliferating in some exurban and rural regions in areas of modest or slow growth. This study examines development on private roads in the commuter-shed of Halifax, Nova Scotia. On the basis of a detailed investigation of private roads conducted in 2006, we document how developers use private streets, describe the design features that result, and consider the socio-spatial implications private streets generate. The analysis reveals different ‘classes’ of private landscapes: from low end rural tracks with mobile homes or cars under repair in front yards, to high-end lakefront homes with expensive cars parked in the driveways. While private streets in the urban context facilitate sustainability goals like intensification and walkability, in the rural and exurban context private streets may reveal a second-class landscape where the affluent have good streets, the poor have potholes, and everyone has to drive everywhere.

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Notes

  1. Researchers spent 6 days in the field, documenting and photographing conditions. We used three criteria for including a road in our analysis: first, it was not a government-owned road. Second, it must have a name, either on the municipal map or posted at the road entrance. Third the street needed more than one building; because we were interested in residential roads, at least one of the buildings had to be residential. As a result, we investigated 57 private roads in the HRM and 66 in East Hants. Because we respected any ‘No Trespassing’ signs we encountered, we could only observe the entrance conditions for some streets.

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful to Stephanie Bohdanow and Jennifer Pritchard for their assistance during the field studies.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Planning, Dalhousie University, Box 1000, Halifax, B3J 2X4, NS, Canada

    Jill L Grant & Leah Carson

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  1. Jill L Grant
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  2. Leah Carson
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Correspondence to Jill L Grant.

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Grant, J., Carson, L. Privatizing the fringe: patterns of private streets in a slow growth region. Urban Des Int 13, 253–262 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1057/udi.2008.28

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