Streets and Blocks: The rural laneway
New Urban News Technical Page by Andres Duany, Michael Morrissey, and Patrick Pinnell
The laneway is found towards the other end of the Transect from its city cousin, the urban alley. Historically, it comes about as an isolated rural dwelling is joined by others, progressively closer. Its appearance as common ground signals a crucial moment: the inauguration of a village.
A laneway is even less finished than a road. A road is to the front of the dwelling, while the lane is the utilitarian access to the fields to the rear. Laneways were originally created to circulate animals, produce, and farm implements along the outside edge of a cluster of dwellings, at the line of the utility buildings. Laneways therefore tended to press up against boundaries, such as watercourses, changes of topography, or the fences and walls of the fields. In a contemporary village, the laneway becomes available for parking, but retains a humble, often appealing, character. A chicken would not look out of place crossing, and it is, of course, a childhood playground paradise.
