THE NEW COMMUNITIES MOVEMENT

RADBURN - A PLANNED COMMUNITY• Radburn, a planned community, was started in 1929 by the City Housing Corporation from the plans developed by Clarence Stein and Henry Wright.•The industrialization of the United States after World War I led to migration from the rural areas and a dramatic growth of the cities during the 1920's. This population shift led to a severe housing shortage. The automobile, which was becoming a mainstay in American life, added a new problem to urban living. Drastic changes in urban design were necessary to provide more housing and to protect people from the horseless carriage. In answer to the needs of "modern society", Radburn, the "Town for the Motor Age" was created•The concept of the "new town" grew out of the older planned communities in Europe and the work of Ebenezer Howard and Patrick Geddes.•The intent was to build a community which made provisions for the complexities of modern life, while still providing the amenities of open space, community service and economic viability.•The community was intended to be a self-sufficient entity, with residential, commercial and industrial areas each supplementing the needs of others. All property within the boundaries of the Radburn Association is governed by The Declaration of Restrictions which runs with the land

RADBURN - A PLANNED COMMUNITY

•In 1974, the Radburn Association site was included in the National Register of Historic Places and the New Jersey State Register.•The residential areas include every type of housing unit with a wide range of cost. The basic layout of the community introduced the "super-block" concept, cul-de-sac (cluster) grouping, interior parklands, and separation of vehicular and pedestrian traffic to promote safety. Every home was planned with access to park walks.•Radburn was explicitly designed to separate traffic by mode, with a pedestrian path system that does not cross any major roads at grade•There are extensive recreation programs planned for the entire community. While the orientation is primarily toward children, there is also a full range of adult activities. Some of the programs are: Tot Lot, Radburn PreSchool, sports, gymnastics, aerobics, amateur dramatics, library, clubroom facilities and a senior citizen club.

RADBURN - A PLANNED COMMUNITY

LOCATION Radburn is located within the Borough of Fair Lawn, Bergen County, New Jersey, 12 miles from New York City.POPULATION There are approximately 3100 people - some 680 families living in Radburn.HOUSING Housing consists of 469 single family homes, 48 townhouses, 30 two family houses, a 93 unit apartment complex and 10 condominium units. Most of the Radburn homes are on small cul-de-sacs ending at a park; this design was intended to accommodate automobiles without requiring them.

FACILITIES AND SITE INFORMATION: Radburn's 149 acres (0.60 km2) include 23 acres (93,000 m2) of interior parks, four tennis courts, three hardball fields, two softball fields, two swimming pools and an archery plaza. Young children and their parents can make use of two toddler playgroup areas, two playgrounds and a toddler bathing pool and many walks. There is also a community center which houses administrative offices, library, gymnasium, clubroom and maintenance shops.

HIGHLIGHTS OF RADBURN LAYOUT:

•The town is divided into large blocks known as superblocks instead of usual narrow sub-division pattern between the streets.

•A community park running through the center of superblock is provided instead of one big park at some distance which may not be used at all.

•All houses are oriented to face the gardens and park strips, also known as Radburn idea.

•The footpath for pedestrians and vehicular traffic are completely separated to grant safety to the movement of the pedestrians.

•The service lanes or cul-de-sac streets are designed and built for one use instead of for all uses.

•The superblocks are enclosed by main roads from which a succession of narrow lanes or cul-de-sac streets lead to and accommodate a succession of groups of houses.

•The primary innovation of Radburn was the separation of pedestrian and vehicular traffic.• This was accomplished by doing away with the traditional grid-iron street pattern and replacing it with an innovation called the superblock. The superblock is a large block of land surrounded by main roads. •The houses are grouped around small cul-de-sacs, each of which has an access road coming from the main roads. The remaining land inside the superblock is park area, the backbone of the neighborhood. •The living and sleeping sections of the houses face toward the garden and park areas, while the service rooms face the access road.•The walks that surround the cul-de-sacs on the garden side of the houses divide the cu-de-sacs from each other and from the central park area. These paths cross the park when necessary. Finally, to further maintain the separation of pedestrian and vehicular traffic, a pedestrian underpass and an overpass, linking the superblocks, were provided. The system was so devised that a pedestrian could start at any given point and proceed on foot to school, stores or church without crossing a street used by automobiles.

•Another innovation of Radburn was that the parks were secured without additional cost to the residents•The savings in expenditures for roads and public utilities at Radburn, as contrasted with the normal subdivision, paid for the parks.

CONCLUSIONS Radburn is a place where community involvement can take place; where the emphasis is on a program to meet the needs of children of all ages, as well as adults; where there is open space (parks); where the main thoroughfares are separated from the pedestrian walks; where the property is small , but the common parks make up for the lack of yard space. It is a planned community which still meets the needs of the people just as it has for nearly eighty years.

THE MUNICIPAL HEALTH MOVEMENT

Sanitary Conditions of mid19th Century Cities

•Air and Water Pollution•Cemetaries•Tenement Living

Richardson’s Hygeia

•M.D. as City Planner•End of tenements and cellars•Control of smoke•Water quality

•The term "tenement" originally referred to tenancy and therefore to any rented

accommodation.

•A tenement is, in most English-speaking areas, a substandard multi-family dwelling in the urban core, usually old and occupied by

the poor.

TENEMENT

Tenements were particularly prevalent in New York

In 1865 a report stated that 500,000 people lived in unhealthy tenements

  In Boston in 1845 less than a quarter of

workers were housed in tenements.

One reason New York had so many tenements was the large numbers of immigrants

The Tenement House Act of 1867, the state legislature's first comprehensive legislation on housing conditions, prohibited cellar apartments unless the ceiling was 1 foot above street level; required one water closet per 20 residents and the provision of fire escapes; and paid some attention to space between buildings.

The Tenement House Act of 1879, known as the Old Law, which required lot coverage of no more than 65 percent.

The Old Law tenement became the standard: this had a "dumbbell" shape, with air and light shafts on either side in the center (usually fitted to the shafts in the adjacent buildings), and typically covered 80 percent of the lot