I particularly had the South-African photo in mind as a comparison when I made my statement. Don't get me wrong, I don't approve poverty, I've lived for a couple of years on less than $2 a day and my parents still do, it's just that the Danish photo is so devoid of life, of human interaction, that makes it so depressing for me.

Maybe I'm a little bit biased because right now I'm reading James C. Scott's "Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed" (http://www.amazon.com/Seeing-Like-State-Condition-Institutio...), which has a couple of chapters against modern, centralized, well-planed architecture that is designed "to look good from a plane" (he gives Brasilia as a negative example). Now, I know these suburbs weren't probably planned by the Government, but the main idea behind their design and planning is the same, i.e. to look good from a geometrical point of view.

It depends on how you look at it. With a more contained and 'gathered' approach, I would think that it would foster a tighter 'community feel' between the neighbors than in a more spread out model. That doesn't seem devoid of human interaction to me.

Each house has tall hedges surrounding it, acting as barriers from neighbors. It seems you'd have to walk all the way around if you wanted to visit. Then, everyone parks in the circle so the car you drive is the most prominent feature of your home.

It looks cool, but I can see how someone might consider it odd.

But all properties are connected at a central point, making it easy to put together gatherings of everyone in the community (e.g. 'block parties'). As opposed to a similar number of houses in a grid pattern. That's just my impression though.