Radburn, New Jersey From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A diagram showing the street network structure of Radburn and its nested hierarchy. Separate pedestrian paths run through the green spaces between the culs-de-sac and through the central green spine (Note: the shaded area was not built)
Radburn U.S. National Register of Historic Places U.S. National Historic Landmark District New Jersey Register of Historic Places
A Radburn cul-de-sac
Location
Fair Lawn, New Jersey
Built
1928
Architect
Clarence Stein, Henry Wright
Architectural style
Colonial Revival, Tudor Revival
Governing body
Private
NRHP Reference #
75001118[1]
NJRHP #
482 Significant dates
Added to NRHP
April 16, 1975
Designated NHLD
April 5, 2005[2]
Designated NJRHP October 15, 1974
Radburn is an unincorporated planned community located within Fair Lawn, in Bergen County, New Jersey, United States. Radburn was founded in 1929 as "a town for the motor age". [3] Its planners, Clarence Stein and Henry Wright, and its landscape architect Marjorie Sewell Cautley[4] aimed to incorporate modern planning principles, which were then being introduced into England'sGarden Cities, following ideas advocated by urban planners Ebenezer Howard, Sir Patrick Geddes[5] and Clarence Perry. Perry’sNeighbourhood unit concept was well-formulated by the time Radburn was planned, being informed by Forest Hills Gardens, Queens, New York (1909-1914), a garden-city development of the Russell Sage Foundation. Radburn was explicitly designed to separate traffic by mode, [5] with a pedestrian path system that does not cross any major roads at grade. Radburn introduced the
largely residential "superblock" and is credited with incorporating some of the earliest culs-de-sac in the United States.[6] Contents [hide]
1 Statistics
2 A community within a community
3 Governance
4 Facilities
5 Radburn as a model
6 See also
7 References
8 External links
Statistics[edit] There are approximately 3,100 people in 670 families residing in Radburn. [5] They live in 469 single-family homes, 48 townhouses, 30two-family houses and a 93unit apartment complex.[5] 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. [5] There is also a community center which houses administrative offices, library, gymnasium, clubroom, pre-school and maintenance shops. For census purposes, Radburn is mostly a subset of Census Tract 171 in Bergen County, New Jersey.[7]
A community within a community[edit]
The Radburn Community enjoys much autonomy within the Borough of Fair Lawn. Pursuant to enabling laws passed in the 1920s andcovenants included in the original deeds for the development, the Radburn Association is a private association which is empowered to administer Radburn's common properties and to collect from the owners of properties quarterly association fees to cover the Association's maintenance and operation of communal facilities. The Association is also empowered to restrict development and decoration of Radburn properties in order to maintain a consistent "look" to the community. Use of Radburn Association facilities is limited to residents (though the parks themselves are ungated and the walkways are public property of the Borough.) Radburn's border with the rest of Fair Lawn is the Bergen County Line to the West; Southeast of Fernwood Dr., Fulton Pl., and Franciscan Way but Northwest of Owen Avenue to the Northwest; Radburn Rd. to the Northeast; one block of Howard Avenue to the Southeast; Alden Terrace to the Northeast and East; one block of High St. to the South; Craig Rd. and its extension through Scribner Rd. to the East; and Berdan Avenue to the South. Radburn's other full-length East-West cross street is Fair Lawn Avenue, and its sole North-South cross street is Plaza Rd.
Governance[edit] Radburn residents vote for a board of trustees to govern the Association. Nominees to six of the nine board seats are chosen by the sitting trustees. Two other seats are appointed by former trustees and not subject to the residents' vote. The ninth seat is filled by the President of the Radburn Citizens' Association ex-officio. In November, 2006 a group of Radburn residents opposed to the current system of governance filed a lawsuit against the Radburn Association. The plaintiffs claim that Radburn's governance violates New Jersey state law and the New Jersey State Constitution. The residents are represented by two public interest legal organizations: the New Jersey Appleseed Public Interest Law Center and The Community Law Clinic of The Rutgers School of Law–Newark. On April 1, 2008, the New Jersey Superior Court awarded summary judgements for both sides in the democracy lawsuit. Judge Contillo found that Radburn's governance was legal as well as its membership. The Court ordered the Association
to comply with the law by providing full financial disclosure to residents and amending its bylaws to support open trustee meetings four times each year. Respected New Jersey Constitutional expert Frank Askin of the Rutgers University School of Law at Newark, and his Clinic on Constitutional Law, have now joined the plaintiffs' pro bono legal team for the appeals process, intending to affirm through the courts that the PREDFDA statute guarantees free elections in planned community government On June 17, 2010, the Moore V Radburn litigation was finally put to rest by the NJ Supreme Court. The petition for certification filed by the 16 litigants was denied.
Facilities[edit]
The Radburn Plaza Building.
The Radburn School, an elementary school located on the edge of the "B" park, is operated by the Fair Lawn Public Schools. While many of its students are Radburn residents, it serves a larger district. The school, built in 1929, was designed by the architecture firm of Guilbert & Betelle. The building was expanded in 1955 and again in 2005. Several prominent Fair Lawn businesses exist in Radburn's business district, which is at the intersection of Fair Lawn Avenue and Plaza Road, two important arteries in Fair Lawn. Many of these businesses are within the Radburn Plaza (clock tower) building, a signature landmark of Radburn and Fair Lawn itself. (The building suffered a severe fire several years ago and was recently restored in its prior
image.) Nearby stands the Old Dutch House, a tavern built during the time of Dutch colonization of the Americas. Facing the Plaza Building is the Radburn railroad station, built by the Radburn developers along the Erie Railroad line (laterConrail) and listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Passenger service operates there today on the New Jersey Transit Bergen County Line.
Radburn as a model[edit] The same design choices seen as impediments to a lifestyle centered around the automobile led to perceptions that Radburn can serve as precedent both for New Pedestrianism and for the car-free movement. The impact of Radburn's urban form on energy consumption for short local trips was considered in a 1970 study by John Lansing of the University of Michigan.[8] The study found Radburn's design to have important implications for energy conservation, recording that 47% of its residents shopped for groceries on foot, while comparable figures were 23% forReston, Virginia (another Radburn-type development, but more car oriented) and only 8% for a nearby unplanned community. Other findings, such as low figures for weekend trips and low average numbers of miles traveled by car per resident, bore out this claim. (See reference, below.) Walt Disney was influenced by Radburn and the works of Ebenezer Howard in his planning for Disneyland, Walt Disney World and more specifically his original vision of theExperimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow (concept) (EPCOT). Disney incorporated the pedestrian pathway concept into his own future city planning: "Children going to and from schools and playgrounds will use these paths, always completely safe and separated from the automobile." Other Radburn innovations Disney would look to incorporate into his plans for EPCOT were cul-de-sacs, collector streets and common open spaces within superblocks. [9] In Canada, the Radburn concept was used in Winnipeg, Manitoba in the late 1940s and early 1950s in three communities: Wildwood Park in Fort Garry, consisting of ten bays (loop streets), Norwood Flats in St. Boniface, consisting of four bays, and
Gaboury Place, a single bay in St. Boniface – totalling several hundred single-family houses, all facing sidewalks and green spaces and backing onto short bays. Today, they are considered to be desirable middle to upper-middle class Winnipeg neighbourhoods to reside in. Clarence Stein incorporated Radburn design principles into the plan of Alcan company town Kitimat, British Columbia in the 1950s. The developers of Varsity Village and Braeside, subdivisions inCalgary, Alberta used the Radburn model in the late 1960s. In Australia, the Radburn model was used in the planning of some Canberra, Australia suburbs developed in the 1960s, in particular Charnwood, Curtin and Garran. It was also used in the Melbourne suburb of Doncaster East in an area known as the Milgate Park Estate.In New South Wales the then Housing Commission used the Radburn concept in numerous new estates built in the mid to late 1960s and early 1970s. Many of the medium density dwellings are being 'turned around' by lowering the road side 'rear' fence and fencing off the 'front yards that share a communal space. The lane ways have long been a problem giving local youth a place to hide and evade motorized police patrols while launching raids into homes virtually unobserved.[dubious – discuss][citation needed] One benefit of this plan not often mentioned is that it allows for narrower streets in the cul-de-sacs that serve the backs of the houses. This means lower costs as less bitumen, piping and cabling is needed to service the homes. In major Radburn areas such as Mt Druitt in Sydney the current Housing NSW are selling off many of their properties as they pass their economical maintenance life and begin to cost more than they are worth. Other properties, particularly the blocks of flats often housing the less affluent and educated are being demolished and new medium density developments built in their place. These are being given to the aged and (specifically migrant) families rather than the former residents, many of whom were on parole or being reintroduced to the general community after treatment for various psychiatric disorders. [citation needed] [dubious – discuss]
Planning for new towns built for the iron ore industry in the late 1960s was also heavily influenced by Radburn. They included South Hedland, Dampier, Shay Gap (now demolished) and Karratha. [10]
In the United Kingdom, Grove Hill, one of the seven planned neighbourhoods in the Hertfordshire new town of Hemel Hempstead, was also partially designed using the Radburn model. A part of Yate in South Gloucestershire in England was developed using the Radburn model. Elsewhere in England the model was employed in an extension to Letchworth Garden City. In The Meadows, Nottingham the model has been less successful: Nottingham City Council has stated that "the problems associated with the layout of the New Meadows Radburn style layout... contribute to the anti-social behaviour and crime in the area."[1] Many other towns in the UK contain areas or estates of Radburn-style housing; often on council estates and seen as a less-than-desirable place to live. The Radburn model also inspired the American Radburn design for public housing.
See also[edit]
National Register of Historic Places listings in Bergen County, New Jersey
References[edit] 1.
Jump up^ "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. 2007-01-23.
2.
Jump up^ "Radburn". National Historic Landmark summary listing. National Park Service. 2008-06-23.
3. 4. 5.
Jump up^ History from the Radburn Association website Jump up^ Marjorie L. Sewell Cautley, Landscape Architect to the Garden City Movement By: Thaisa Way, accessed June 7, 2006 ^ Jump up to:a b c d e Introduction from the Radburn Association website
6.
Jump up^ Cul-de-Sacs: Suburban Dream or Dead End?, a June 2006 National Public Radio story
7.
Jump up^ Census 2000 Profile for Census Tract 171 in Bergen County, New Jersey
8.
Jump up^ John B. Lansing, Robert W. Marans and Robert B. Zehner, Planned Residential Environments (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 1970), p. 213
9.
Jump up^ Sam Gennawey, Walt and the Promise of Progress City (Ayefour Publishing, 2011), pp. 230-231
10.
Jump up^ http://www.porthedlandnow.com.au/history
RADBURN THE TOWN FOR THE MOTOR AGE 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 in 1929. How Radburn was going to meet the problems of "modern society" is best illustrated in architect Henry Wright's "Six Planks for a Housing Platform". These ideas formed the basic philosophy that he followed in designing Radburn. His planks were: Plan simply, but comprehensively. Don't stop at the individual property line. Adjust paving, sidewalks, sewers and the like to the particular needs of the property dealt with - not to a conventional pattern. Arrange buildings and grounds so as to give sunlight, air and a tolerable outlook to even the smallest and cheapest house. Provide ample sites in the right places for community use: i.e., playgrounds, school gardens, schools, theatres, churches, public buildings and stores. Put factories and other industrial buildings where they can be used without wasteful transportation of goods or people. Cars must be parked and stored, deliveries made, waste collected - plan for such services with a minimum of danger, noise and confusion. Bring private and public land into relationship and plan buildings and groups of buildings with relation to each other. Develop collectively such services as will add to the comfort of the individual, at lower cost than is possible under individual operation.
Arrange for the occupancy of houses on a fair basis of cost and service, including the cost of what needs to be done in organizing, building and maintaining the community. The main thrust in the planning of Radburn can be summarized by the quote from architect Clarence Stein, who said, " We did our best to follow Aristotle's recommendation that a city should be built to give its inhabitants security and happiness". 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-desacs 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. The Radburn type of plan requires less area of street to secure the same amount of frontage. In addition, for direct access to most houses, it used narrower roads of less expensive construction, as well as smaller utility lines. In fact, the area in streets and length of utilities is 25% less than in the typical American street. The savings in cost not only paid for 12 - 14% of the total area that went into internal parks, but also covered the cost of grading and landscaping the play spaces and green links connecting the central block commons. The genius of the Radburn Plan is shown in the use of the small property lots and cul-desac construction to finance part of the land, as well as the grading and the landscaping which is the most costly part of park building. The cost of living in such a community was therefore set at a minimum for the homeowner, and the cost to the builder was small enough to make the venture profitable. Radburn had been conceived by Stein and Wright to house 25,000 people. The boundaries of this community were to be the Saddle River on the east (Radburn means Saddle River in Old English) , the Erie Railroad on the west, the Glen Rock border on the north, and Saddle Brook Township on the south. The Old Mill, now part of the Bergen County Park System, was to be the entrance of this new city. The Depression pushed the builder, City Housing Corporation, into bankruptcy. For this reason, Radburn could not expand beyond
its present size of 149 acres which includes 430 single family homes, 90 row houses, 54 semiattached houses and a 93 apartment unit, as well as a shopping center, parks and amenities. Although the physical plan of Radburn has been an inspiration to planners and architects here in the United States and abroad for almost 60 years, equally important in the development of Radburn is The Radburn Association. The Association is a non-profit corporation charged with fixing, collecting and disbursing charges; maintaining services, parks and facilities; and interpreting and applying the Declaration of Restrictions, which are restrictive covenants running with the land. Each property within the Association boundaries is governed by these Restrictions. The Association manages a park network of 23 acres, two swimming pools, four tennis courts, four baseball fields, three playground areas, five outdoor basketball courts, an archery plaza, two summer houses, and a community center called the Grange, which includes offices, a library, clubroom, kitchen, maintenance shop and garage, a recreation room and a gymnasium equipped with a stage. On this stage, the Radburn Players, the oldest active amateur theatre group in the state, produce several shows each year. The physical properties allow the Association to provide a comprehensive recreation program for its residents all year long. The affairs of the Association are handled much like the council-manager form of government. The nine member Board of Trustees sets policies and approves the budget, while the administration lies in the hands of a full time paid manager. Every resident is automatically a member of the Citizens' Association, whose President sits as a full member of the Board of Trustees during his term of office. This group gives the citizens a forum for voicing opinions and addressing concerns directly to the Board of Trustees through its President. In the field of planning and architecture, Radburn has been called by Anthony Bailey, "the most significant notion in 20th Century urban development". Lewis Mumford considered it "the first major advance in city planning since Venice". Radburn is unique because it was envisioned as a town for better living, and it was the first example of city planning which recognized the importance of the automobile in modern life without permitting it to dominate the environment. It was the first time in th United States that a housing development was attempted on such a large scale, proceeding from a definite architectural plan resulting in a complete town. Radburn is also important to builders because of the unique way that the parks and grading were funded. From a sociological point of view, Radburn not only exemplifies an ideally planned place to live, but it establishes a real mode or plan of living. The planned use of the land and the establishment of the Association creates a lifestyle that is unheard of in most of modern society. It is a lifestyle of community concern, action and participation. James Dahir saw in Radburn a new hope for a humanistic society through planning which took into account the social, as well as the physical needs of the residents. He writes that Radburn is:
"social planning of an advanced order. It is manipulation of physical elements to induce and encourage a social and human goal. It is a kind of planning which recognizes that the growing edge of civilization is in the human and not the mechanical direction, though the mechanical factors must be carefully aligned and allocated to support and advance the communal achievements and the social inventions of a free people of autonomous family life." As the country struggled out of the Depression, the influence of the Radburn Idea was first reflected in the various Greenbelt communities of the Resettlement Administration and later, in Baldwin Hills, Los Angeles and Kitimat. B. C. The Idea then showed up in England and later in Sweden at Vallingly, the huge Stockholm suburb; at the Baronbackavna Estate, Orebro and at the Beskopsgaden Estate, Goteborg. It was in post world War II England that Radburn achieved generic status. The "Radburn Plan", the "Radburn Idea", the "Radburn Layout" appeared first at Coventry and later at Stevenage, Bracknell and Cumbernauld. It has since spread to Chandigarh, India; to Brazil; to several towns in Russia and to a section of Osaka, Japan. The Japanese community is almost an exact duplicate of Radburn. The "Idea" finally returned to the United States at Reston, Virginia and Columbia, Maryland. Several towns since have been modeled after the "Radburn Plan". Brazilia and the capital of New Zealand are current projects which are consciously implementing Radburn-based concepts. The importance of Radburn is clearly seen in its influence on the planning of many towns throughout the world. Its sociological impact through its planning has made the style of life noteworthy and right for modern living. Hundreds come each year from all around the world to see and study the Radburn Idea. New towns are being built each year modeled after the Radburn Idea, using both its planning ideas and covenants in designing their urban development. Radburn, planned as a "Town for the Motor Age" is truly a "Town for Tomorrow" Ronald F. Gatti, Manager, 1969 - 1989 THE RADBURN ASSOCIATION
