As families prepare for Halloween, decorations are set and pumpkins are carved in every neighborhood around the city. But come time for trick-or-treating, not every area will get the same attention. Some will be bustling with kids going door to door, others will look like any other fall Friday night.  What makes a neighborhood great for trick-or-treating? Is it just where they give out the full size candy bars? Well that definitely plays a factor for some, but where families decide to take their kids on Halloween can tell us a lot more about urban design that we may think. 

So why do people make the decision to stay put or go elsewhere for the festivities? For parents, things like safe sidewalks, well lit streets, and low car traffic may come to mind. A place where they can watch their children go house to house without needing to hover over them the whole time. For kids, they want to know where to get the most candy in the shortest amount of time, that means lots of houses and not a lot of walking. They’re looking for a neighborhood where every house is filled and houses aren’t too far apart or far from the sidewalk.

Without knowing it, these parents and children are putting neighborhoods under a pedestrian level stress test. Which neighborhood actually invites people with its design, makes them feel safe and provides an enjoyable experience? The traits that make an area good for getting loads of candy are also traits that reflect great urban design: walkability, density, social diversity, and human-scale and safe design. 

Halloween is all about walking. Kids go by foot, door to door, showing off their costumes and collecting candy. In order for kids to maximize their haul, they need to be able to walk along well paved, well lit sidewalks, three or four wide, free from cars and other obstructions. Crosswalks need to be clearly marked and maintained, with narrow roads making it easy to cross, zigzagging from house to house. Importantly, these neighborhoods are free from speeding cars and dangerous traffic. This all leads to a great Halloween experience. But why stop at one day a year, can’t our neighborhoods be walkable all year around, for people of all ages? The same things that make the kid’s experience great would make a great experience for the teenager walking to his first day of high school, or the grandmother walking to the local pharmacy. 

If you ask a kid what the most important thing about trick-or-treating is, they will almost undoubtedly say the amount of candy they get. When they pour out their candy on the living room floor, they want to see an overflowing mound that will last them through New Years. And how do they achieve this cavity inducing goal? They hit as many houses as they can in the limited time they have. So when analyzing a neighborhood, kids will want to make sure there’s a house on every lot, the houses aren’t too spread out, and they have a nice easy path to the front door. What these kids are doing just makes sense, and it should make sense to city officials too. Fuller neighborhoods are better. Empty, unmaintained lots don’t serve up Snickers Bars, and they don’t offer a lot to the neighborhood every other day of the year.

While kids may travel from all over to the “good” neighborhoods, a neighborhood needs all types of people to have a good Halloween. It needs kids to fill the streets, parents to watch and walk along with them, as well as adults to man the doors and hand out candy. A neighborhood full of only young families? Then you’ll have nobody passing out candy. A neighborhood full of retirees? No kids enjoy the candy. This same idea carries over with the principle that a healthy neighborhood has constantly changing, but always diverse demographics, with residents flowing in and out, always growing and evolving. 

Classic Halloween movies and television episodes all seem to have that same trick-or-treating feeling in the neighborhood. The pumpkins and decorations, sure, but also houses that have large front porches that face the street, trees that litter the yards with leaves, and an absence of driveways or parking lots filled with cars. It would look totally out of place if kids were crossing 6 lane roads or parking lots, cars zooming around, turning in and out of curb cuts, just to get a pack of Milk Duds. A good trick-or-treating neighborhood is navigable by children and adults alike, and nobody feels out of place. Neighborhoods are meant for people to live in, interact with each other, and feel at home, and they should be designed that way.