Paleo Retiree writes:
Enjoy a beautiful collection of photos of narrow streets — and wonder, as I often do, why the U.S. doesn’t have many more attractive streets than it does. Crazy, utopian concept: A street shouldn’t be just a way to get from one place to another; it should be a beautiful thing in its own right. Gold-bug/New Urbanist (go ahead and make sense of that combo, I dare ya) Nathan Lewis is a super-informed advocate of the virtues of narrow streets. Scroll down his page and click on his “Traditional City/Heroic Materialism Archive” — there’s a lot of brilliant and wonderfully-illustrated stuff there to explore. I like Lewis’ brand of urbanism a lot, and I enjoyed his monetary history of gold too.
Blowhard, Esq.
Callowman
Sherbrooke
Eddie Pensier
Enzo Nakamura
Epaminondas
Fabrizio del Wrongo
Fenster
Brundle Guy
Glynn Marshes
Paleo Retiree
Atypical Neurotic
Question Lady
Sax von Stroheim
Sir Barken Hyena
The Mistaken
Uncouth Reflections 
Most post-war US city plan / zone codes require streets to be wide enough to accommodate a fire truck and usually another lane of parking or traffic. You’ll see the code listed under ‘fire department vehicle access’ or ‘fire apparatus access road’. The minimum width is usually around 20 feet. It keeps the suburbs really spaced out.
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Yeah, it’s a big problem. It’s one of the regulations New Urbanists try to change when they go into a place and try to help it become more traditionally urban.
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For Americans, the tragedy of the commons is gospel.
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“Crazy, utopian concept: A street shouldn’t be just a way to get from one place to another; it should be a beautiful thing in its own right.”
Thoughtcriminal! What kind of good citizen-subject are you, comrade?
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