AIBU to focus our house search on a cul-de-sac?

[Odellio]

We are looking to move and I'm being quite stubborn about wanting a cul-de-sac location. I was a kid in 90/00s and grew up on a cul-de-sac, it was very normal for us and the neighbours kids to be out the front playing and it was safe to do so. I want this for my kids, but does it still happen? I worried I'm limiting our house search to recreate a childhood that might not exist anymore.

YABU - kids don't tend to do this anymore, so widen your house search prioritising other things.
YANBU - kids still play out the front in cul-de-sacs, the dream is possible!

We live in a cul de sac of 8 houses and no child plays out in a communal area. 4 of the 8 houses have children under 18 but a mix of ages and the children don’t play together at all.

Round here I would say that the families who have kids with friends very close by tend to live on the new build estates, which have a lot of young families living there. We live in a part of town where the age profile is a bit older so I think that has been limiting in my kids forming friendships with kids close by - the pool is a lot smaller!

There’s so few decent houses for sale now you would be limiting what’s available to you even more. You’re also assuming that the cul de sac will be occupied by families with children of a similar age. You’re more likely to find this demographic on a new build estate.

On another note, I could think of nothing worse than living on a cul de sac where parking is likely to be a bigger problem than when you were a child.

You can set any parameters you like, it’s your house! The only issue is that you want to live on a certain type of road, not for the road itself, but because of other people. You can’t choose the other people unfortunately. There might not be any children, they might be the wrong age, they might not enjoy playing outside in the street, they might be absolutely tearaways!

I live in a cul-de-sac where the kids all play out and that’s fine except the parents seem to think they don’t have to teach their children road sense. It is still a public road with traffic and very young children are allowed to play unsupervised. I have to come in very slowly as they can run out from behind parked cars. They also abandon bikes and scooters everywhere which we have to get out and move so we can park. I think we have a parent problem!

We live in a cul-de-sac of 22 houses. We moved here when our children were under 5 years old.

There were loads of other kids for them to play with, either out at the front, or the'd be in and out of each other's gardens.

The cycle of life has happened, and a lot of our neighbours have died, or moved away etc, with new families moving in.

There are still quite a lot of children living in the street, but far fewer play out the front than when our children were young. Still get a few on bikes, or playing ball games, but not many now.

One thing to consider, which until yesterday, I'd never thought of 😅. One of the houses was raided by police yesterday, as it was being used as a cannabis farm. The police said that the criminals choose quiet roads like ours, as there's no through traffic, either vehicular or pedestrian, so they are less likely to be spotted/reported.

Moved from a cul de sac to a cul de sac. Obviously the privacy is nice and in general it’s pretty peaceful.

When our children were growing up in the 90s children from our Close played together or often in our garden. As ours grew up new children often played on the huge garden of the corner house which was open.
The one we live in now is all bungalows. There are some children but you don’t see them playing out.

My main worry now would be delivery drivers in cars and vans. All on tight timescales and dashing in and out. So if I had Grandchildren I wouldn’t want them playing out in the cul de sac.

I’d keep an open mind as you are probably trying to recreate something from your childhood and may be disappointed.

I live on a cul de sac and there are 9 kids that play out together. You can have anything you like as you priority when looking for somewhere, but cul de sac might limit things as they are not so common. But if that’s what you want, that’s what you want!

Unnecessary.

In my experience cul de sac equals parking wars. Never again!

I grew up in a cul-de-sac and used to play out with my friends. My parents still live in the same house I grew up in and I don't think it happens anymore in the way it used to (I haven't asked my parents, but I haven't observed it when I visit them). I would say it's still a nice friendly street though, possibly because of its layout.

In your position I think I'd move this from a "deal breaker" to a "nice to have".

We also have a cannabis grower/dealer . I never thought about the connection to a cul de sac 😂

Parking is a big issue on my cul de sac as half the houses do not have space for drives and most households seem to want a car per adult.

However, the kids all play out together and it's part of the reason we haven't moved on.

Thank you, this is exactly the kind of range of opinions I needed to hear already!

A good point made about delivery vans that wouldn't have been an issue in my childhood.

I'm finding I'm drawn towards houses that were built same time as my childhood home, but actually those neighbourhoods are largely occupied by people my parent's ages rather than young families.

I don't live on a cul de sac - but on a small 'new' build estate (houses are probably 15 years old) built on a sort of loop. Loads of kids play out in the street! Mine are too old, but there's a big gang of younger kids on bikes/scooters/having water fights etc.

My friends on other new build estates have the same thing. Lots of DC playing out.

Agree with this. I live in a cul de sac and it isn't safe for children to play outside on the street because of delivery drivers and care workers who race in and out.
The houses do have big enclosed back gardens and green areas/parks nearby though - I'd focus your search on that kind of thing (which largely rules out new builds as the developers never create play facilities quickly and gardens are tiny).

My mum still lives on the cul de sac I grew up on and I'm now 62. We used to play out front together as kids but I notice they don't do so now. There are far more cars than there were in my day, so ball games don't happen (people don't want cars damaged) and even in quiet locations people nowadays are more aware of the dangers of allowing children out unsupervised. I think the reality is not the same as our memories OP.

YANBU our cul de sac is like this, the kids knock on the door for each other and play outside every day for hours. I grew up on one with 40 houses and there was always someone to play with.
ETA I don’t let them out unsupervised yet but we don’t have an army of dangerous drivers hooning around, I just stand in view of the end of the road in case a car comes. By the time the kids are out of school most deliveries are done anyway.

BTW Ours is on a newbuild estate so nobody had ever met before we all moved in, that hasn’t stopped the kids making friends at all despite all being at different schools.

Both my houses have been in cul de sacs.

This one now you cannot so much as put your bins out without it turning into a social gathering. It's lovely.

Kids knocking for each other.

For events we put a big screen up and marquee.. think wimbledon, world cup, royal weddings etc (the end of the cul de sac is a big shared drive with five houses)

we did a street party for the coronation

BBQs, birthday parties...

we have even been on holiday with each other 😂

I'm sure MN would be horrified but it's lovely to have lovely neighbours

I live in a cul-de-sac and I’m sad I don’t think we have a cannabis grower. I feel like I’m missing out! (Before anyone starts I don’t actually smoke weed. I don’t even smoke cigarettes ).
We have 18 houses in our road and none have children. One couple has grandchildren round sometimes and they ride bikes outside but that’s it!

I agree about the parking though it’s bonkers down here at times. One house has driveway space for 2 cars but has 5 cars! One house has space for 2 but it’s a long thin drive so because they need to keep swapping cars about they just don’t bother and park one on the street. Another one has 1 space but 2 cars so parks on the street and god forbid someone takes that space she will pretty much just dump her car anywhere in protest including over other people’s drives.

The way maniacs drive these days it wouldn't be safe but I used to play with neighbours kids without one just a normal street

Personally I think it is odd to have any lifestyle vision with any type of set up because real life isnt a movie, life is what it is regardless of where you life

We are in a cul de sac on account of the cat!

I live in a cul-de-sac of 11 houses. No one has kids. We’re the youngest people who live down there (41 and 45!) It is quiet but lots of drivers don’t seem to know what a cul-de-sac is and still drive down to the end to turn around. It is pretty quiet though.
I guess you’d need to find out who the neighbours are and if they have any kids.

I was going to say this. Like you I grew up in a cul de sac but even then none of the neighbours had kids and it was already older people. My parents still live there now and it is still older people (as even as houses have sold, they have been purchased by people with adult children/no children).

As stated, it's the new builds that tend to have families. There is a big new build near us that seems to do a lot of things. They appear to have a residents group and plan activity trails over the summer and go all out for Halloween and Christmas.

I think to achieve your vision of a 1980s childhood, you would have to survey all the people in the cul de sac to find out how many cars they have, how many children they have and whether they would let them play out on the street dodging the Amazon deliveries.