Project 1C

Theoretical Neighborhood

Sean Hufnagel

“There are, in reality, not only… two alterna-

tives - town life and country life - but a third

alternative, in which all the advantages of the

most energetic and active town life, with all

the beauty and delight of the country, may be

secured in perfect combination.”

Ebenezer Howard

Garden Cities of To-morrow

The Town-Country Magnet

During the late 1800s, the downsides of the industrial revolution and capitalism were becoming all too apparent to some. The accumula-

tion of wealth in the hands of fewer and fewer individuals meant that those

whose labor allowed that wealth were doomed to live in small, crowded,

improperly ventilated homes breathing dirty air.

In 1898 Ebenezer Howard (1850-1928) wrote a book entitled To-morrow: A

Peaceful Path to Real Reform. Four years later, the second edition came out

under the title of Garden Cities of To-morrow. The writing aimed to sustain

“a healthy, natural, and economic combination of town and country life”

through a balance of work and leisure; a harmonious relationship

between the machine and garden.

In Howard’s plan, 6,000 acres of cheap rural land are to be pur-

chased, 1000 of which are reserved for the city. A 32,000 per-

son population cap is set. Public parks and private lawns are

everywhere. The roads are incredibly wide, ranging from 120

to 420 feet for the Grand Avenue, and they are radial rather

than linear. Commercial, industrial, residential, and public

uses are clearly differentiated from each other spatially.

Upon reaching the population cap, a second township is creat-

ed under the same standards, connected by a shared railway.

While not Howard’s intention, the application of the garden

cities concept to planning in the United States has just fueled

suburbanization. One could argue that the stepchild of the garden

city, suburbia, represents almost the antithesis of Howard’s dream

A TOWN For The Motor Age

Radburn’ s planners, Clarence Stein and Henry Wright, and its landscape

architect Marjorie Sewell Cautley aimed to incorporate modern planning

principles, which were then being introduced into England’s Garden Cities,

following ideas advocated by urban planners Ebenezer Howard, Sir Patrick

Geddes and Clarence Perry.

The intent was to build a community which made provisions for the complexi-

ties of modern life, while still providing the amenities of open space, com-

munity service and economic viability.

Radburn was explicitly designed to separate traffic by mode, with a pedes-

trian path system that does not cross any major roads at grade. Radburn

introduced the largely residential “superblock” and is credited with incorpo-

rating some of the earliest culs-de-sac in the United States.

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. The study found Radburn’s design to have

important implications for energy conservation, re-

cording that 47% of its residents shopped for grocer-

ies on foot, while comparable figures were 23% for

Reston, Virginia (another Radburn-type development,

but more car oriented) and only 8% for a nearby un-

planned community.

Location: 12 miles from New York City

Date: Founded 1929

Size: 149 acres (0.60 km2)

Park System: 23 acres (93,000 m2)

Population: 3,100

RESIDENTIAL 93-unit apartment complex

469 single family homes

48 townhouses

30 two-family houses

(One side of the houses was accessible from the street,

and the other side of the houses opened onto communal

gardens that had pathways leading to a central park.)

COMMUNITY RECREATION4 tennis courts

3 hardball fields

2 softball fields

2 swimming pools

1 archery plaza

2 toddler playgroup areas

2 playgrounds

1 toddler bathing pool

Radburn New Jersey