The Backyard Paths of Copperstone
I explore the pedways of wealthy suburbia. And judge them.
I don't know what this post is. A walk segment review? A neighborhood review? A subdivision review? A discussion of suburban walkability?
Segment
Start: W Vawter School Road and Frontage Drive.
End: Stone Grove Ct.
Distance: Approx. 3/4 mile.
Directions:
MKT-Country Woods Road-W Vawter School Road (missing sidewalks in some places)
or
MKT-Scott Boulevard-Stone Grove Court:
Copperstone is a newly built neighborhood of large, suburban homes. Their prices push a million dollars, in a part of the country where that still means something. It has a name "Copperstone", which sounds nice but doesn't mean anything. The term McMansion could be thrown around here. It has a walkscore of 14. This is a place that would not normally be called a 'walkable neighborhood.'
The thing that makes this posh suburban setting different from the other nearby neighborhoods, is that they've built a series of paths through it. On Copperstone's website, they describe this as "gorgeous pedways throughout"1.
There was a clear effort to make this subdivision a nice place to walk. People like walkable places, and will pay more to live somewhere walkable. To walk people need a path. A path should be away from the street, it should pass through greenspace, and have trees and nice landscaping. Is how I imagine the developer thought about it.
And here I am, trying to decide if I like it.
Nice and empty
The first impression is good. Almost as soon as I enter the neighborhood, the path departs from the street, and suddenly instead of on a suburban street, I am in what feels like a sort of park, with lots of well-mowed green grass, except a park where a few people have managed to sneak their McMansions in.
The path itself has gentle curves that work well, it never feels too straight to too windy. I feel like the person who was tasked with designing the path took their job seriously and did it well.
That said, no one was outside. It really is a nice place, and the residents ought to be enjoying it. I could imagine two neighbors grilling in their backyards and chatting to each other. Except there is no one to be seen. No one doing yardwork, no one playing, no one hanging out. At the very end I did see one other person, a dogwalker who regarded me with either suspicion or curiosity.
I don't feel welcome here
I didn't feel welcome. I don't think I was actually prohibited from walking through here, I didn't see any "private path" signs like I've seen in other nearby areas. Still, it did not feel welcoming. Something about the occasional walls, the path being below a lot of the homes, brought a noticeable "peasant arriving at castle” to the whole endeavor.
No Wayfinding
Unlike much of suburbia it wasen’t actually hard to navigate as there was really only one way to go. Still, It almost goes without saying, that there was no wayfinding because there is never ever any wayfinding. A couple of signs would make a big difference, in terms of friendliness if nothing else.
No Connection to the outside world.
The path is entirely within Copperstone. It does not connect to the outside world at any place. Even if it did it would be Scott Boulevard, which isn't amazing for walking, or Vawter School Road, which is quite a bit worse, due to its lack of signal at Frontgate, and intermittent sidewalks.
I liked the path. It was pretty and away from cars. That’s most of the battle right there. It struggles with that sterile, unwelcome, empty feeling that a lot of new suburban places have. I felt like I was somewhere nice but artificial, like walking through a golf course or a park. Still I'd take it over almost any suburban sidewalk. And I think I'd take it as a longcut rather than Scott Boulevard, which is the alternative.
These sorts of paths (or ‘pedways’ if you must) are an improvement and we should have more of them, in more places. They also show the limits of path building without connection to the wider walking world. If every suburban subdivision had something like this and they all connected we really would be getting somewhere.
Happy Walking!
-Chris
How to Walk in Suburbia
Despite the rumors to the contrary, it turns out that the suburbs are quite walkable. “Walkable” seems to mean one of two things. The first is how easy the area is for accomplishing the various tasks that need to be done in everyday life on foot. On this measure, the suburbs are poor. They simply aren’t close enough to the things you need to do, they …
just say "path"