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!

I grew up similarly and moved to a cul de sac two years ago. There are no other children to play with!

We're in a cul de sac, around 10 houses with 11 kids of various ages.
The kids the same age tend to play out together and the older kids play/hang out.
I had never considered it until we had kids but it's a really nice thing to have.

My own preference for cul de sac was the lighter traffic and reduced road noise.

It depends on the area - regional

round here kids play out

previous home, no they didn’t at all

best to look at the areas you are interested in and see what is happening in practise

When we were house hunting, our experience was that some of the cul de sacs were very “cluttered” and had cars parked all over the roads as a lot of the houses only had a single driveway/single garage spaces, and so a 2nd car/works van/older kids living at home cars/vans/ visitors cars/ delivery vans were parked all over the road and so the visibility was poor and there wasn’t as much space for playing out anyway and it would have been dangerous.

My friend however lives in a cul de sac with only 6 houses (new build) but it’s a private road and all the houses have big double drives and it’s gated so no thru traffic so it’s different and much safer.

I guess people all have different priorities but when we bought our house, we went for a non-estate older house, it’s on a nice road but not a main one, but we have a bigger drive and can get 6 cars on it as it’s older and we were thinking ahead of young adult kids with cars. It’s also got 4 bedrooms and they’re all a decent size, and there is a good sized garden and decent living space.

For the same money, we could have had a 3 bed rebuild on a cul de sac but nowhere near as much space or a decent garden and that was important to us.

We’ve lived in a cul-de-sac for over 21 years, since our youngest was a baby. One of the best things about it was them being able to play out the front with other kids from the street. They learned to ride bikes, roller blade, it really worked well for us. Each generation of new kids in the street has done exactly the same. If you’re considering a particular house it would be worth visiting at different times to see whether there are kids playing out.

All the kids play out in my cul de sac.

It’s not unreasonable but will be limiting. Having said that I’ve only lived in four houses and all were in either a cul de sac or a road with a dead end and they are much preferable to a through road.

my Dc now age 13 and 16 played out on the cul de sac when they were small There aren’t many doing so now but probably we don’t have the right ages in our street as they are either teenage or pre school. Friends and family who live on new build estates seem to have plenty dc out playing especially those with communal green spaces so I’d definitely consider widening your search

I grew up in the 90s in a cul-de-sac and had exactly the childhood you described - my mom still lives there and despite there being a few newer families with children they just don’t seem to play out any more!

In contrast we’ve moved to a new build estate and are part of a group of about 7 families who regularly meet up, kids play out together etc so I do feel like times have changed slightly. The roads don’t feel as safe as they were on the cul-de-sac but we have plenty of green areas etc where the kids go and play safely.

Thank you everyone for your input. It's been really helpful.

There are a few properties which I had excluded for not being on a cul-de-sac but look like quiet residential roads that we are going to explore now.

My dc grew up in a cul de sac and his dad still lives there as does 80% of the people who lived there when Dh was young. Do basically everyone is older and no young kids. It’s not a guarantee there will be kids to play with. You’d be better buying in a newer build estate aimed at young families.

Depends on the cul-de-sac I think.

I lived in one as a teenager; it was quiet but by that age I'd outgrown 'playing outside'. Think it would have been fine though.

I've recently moved from another cul-de-sac that DH and I lived in for 12 years. Absolutely rammed with cars, barely any pavement space, and actually quite busy. Not many kids playing on the street there tbh.

I grew up on a long, straight residential street. We had a great time playing on that and the surrounding roads. But it was the early 1990s. Maybe different now? I'm not sure.