This design pattern is very prevalent in some of the most highly planned and desirable places to live in the country. I'm thinking places like Irvine, CA. Lots of 50 MPH boulevards (definitely not "highways", despite the speed limit) with very dense housing immediately adjacent behind barriers/landscaping. Not a model used much here in Ohio (at least not that I'm aware of, since we don't actually plan much of anything), but obviously extremely successful at what it's trying to accomplish. And in practice just about the opposite of "forbidding" or "dead" or "separating". In fact, extremely inviting and walkable/bikeable.
Not to say that this pattern is necessarily appropriate in this case (or that they're really even trying to use it), but it definitely can work really well.