Returning To Radburn

Radburn the Hardy Perennial ofArchetypes

Among American plannedcommunities of the twentieth cen-tury Radburn in Fair Lawn New Jer-sey stands as the exceptional arche-type Radburn is routinely cited byplanning historians as a benchmarkcommunity design the prototypicalAmerican suburban expression ofEbenezer Howardrsquos ldquoGarden Cityrdquoidea (Richert and Lapping 1998Howard 1902) which had found ear-lier expression in Sir Raymond Un-winrsquos English New Towns (Unwin1932)2 Radburn too was conceivedat the scale of a town but the devel-opment process ran agroundabruptly at the onset of the Great De-pression From a historical perspec-tive this hardly mattered despite itsfailure to grow beyond the limits ofan initial phase (Figure 1) and its fail-ure to realize the holistic vision ofthe Regional Planning Association ofAmerica (RPAA)3 Radburnrsquos influ-ence on subsequent American newtown experiments such as the threeNew Deal-era Greenbelt Towns (The

U S Resettlement Association1936)4 and the much larger-scaledGreat Society-era New Towns was pro-found5 In the 1970s Radburnemerged once again as a significantprototype serving as the conceptualmodel for the early ldquoecoburbrdquo of Vil-lage Homes in Davis California (Cor-bett 1981 Girling and Helphand1994 Corbett 2000)6

The New Urbanist Repudiationof Radburn

Scholarly studies of Radburnitself which recently celebrated its80th anniversary abound in plan-ning literature in the form of booksresearch articles and graduate thesesand dissertations (Girling and Help-hand 1994 Christensen 1986 Schaf-fer 1982 Filler 1982 Birch 1980Stellhorn 1978)7 Radburn has beenrepeatedly described analyzed ex-tolled and criticized from the per-spective of historians planners de-

signers and social critics what bringsRadburn to light in contemporarydiscussion is the rhetoric and criticalperspective of the recently emergedtown planning trend known as ldquonewurbanismrdquo (Duany et al 2000 Lec-cese and McCormick 1999 Schmitzand Bookout 1998 Fulton 1997 Katz1994)8 In the critical tradition ofJane Jacobs (Gladwell 2000 Jacobs1961)9 new urbanists have the hyper-opic tendency to dismiss Radburn asa ldquofailurerdquo (Calthorpe 1993)10 re-garding its landscape (as opposed tostreetscape) orientation its intro-verted cul-de-sacs and its calculatedspurning of the traditional street-scape as the very embodiment ofanti-urbanism as the apex of thetwentieth-century momentum-gathering slide down the slipperyslope toward twenty-first century sub-urban sprawl For new urbanists Rad-burn is a cautionary tale an exampleof how to get things badly wrongAnd no wonder Clarence Steinrsquos de-sign concept for Radburn the foun-dation of which was that residentsand cars should not mix within the

156 Landscape Journal 202ndash01

Returning to RadburnMichael David Martin

Michael David Martin ASLA CELASACRPH (BLA University of Georgia1982 MLA University of Oregon1995) is a licensed landscape archi-tect an Assistant Professor of Land-scape Architecture at Iowa State Uni-versity and a former partner of theAtlanta Georgia-based landscapearchitectureland planning firmReece Hoopes and Fincher His re-search interests are focused on thesubject of neighborhood and com-munity planning

Abstract The ldquonew urbanistrdquo vision for contemporary neighborhoods looks back tothe streetscapes of the pre-automobile era for inspiration intentionally overlooking the auto-mobile-adaptive community design era which began in America with Clarence Steinrsquos andHenry Wrightrsquos ldquoTown for the Motor Agerdquo Radburn1 in the late 1920s New urbanism es-tablishes a theoretical position fundamentally at odds with ldquogarden cityrdquo design principleswhich differentiate streetscapes and community open space New urbanists do this by down-playing or ignoring the conflict inherent in the idea that a neighborhood street should at-tempt to serve as civic interface while simultaneously serving as the outdoor focus forneighborhood social life The author proposes that experimental and innovative Radburnrather than pre-modern pre-automobile town design is the logical starting point for un-derstanding how to form contemporary neighborhoods because Radburn actually began toaddress the dilemma posed by the new automobility Subsequent ldquogarden cityrdquo experimentssuch as the American New Towns of the 1960s and later planned unit developments paidhomage to Radburn but abandoned particular radical aspects of the Radburn conceptthus we have not witnessed the true evolution of Radburn in North American suburbiaHowever the few planned communities which did remain true to Radburnrsquos radicalismsuch as Winnipeg Manitobarsquos postwar Wildwood Park do reflect this evolution This pa-per will address the fundamental opposition that constitutes the relationship between newurbanism and the Radburn concept and will reveal that the present-day landscapes ofWildwood Park and of Radburn itself have evolved to offer insights for how the Radburnconcept can be adapted for contemporary community planning

primary community space is funda-mentally at odds with the new urban-ist vision for livable public streetsNew urbanism has repudiated theRadburn idea

The clearest and perhaps atthis point the most widely dissemi-nated evidence of this repudiationcan be found in the recent editionsof Architectural Graphic Standards thereference ldquobiblerdquo for architects plan-ners and landscape architects Agroup identified as ldquoThe Cintas

Foundationrdquo comprised of new ur-banist pioneers Andres Duany andElizabeth Plater-Zyberk (among oth-ers) authored sections of the volumewhich identify general communityplanning typologies and principlesUnder ldquoplan typesrdquo they do providea platting diagram of a portion ofRadburn but assert that its distinc-

tive disadvantage is its ldquoconcentrationof traffic by absence of networkrdquo(Hoke 2000 p 88)mdasha criticism thatis of course balanced by the ldquotraffic-calmingrdquo benefits inherent in a streetplan which accommodates only localtraffic It is also in this particularcase an invalid criticism since aproblematic degree of ldquoconcentra-tion of trafficrdquo would occur only be-yond a certain scale of developmentor beyond a certain extent of a den-dritic street patternmdasha scale fargreater than that of the compactRadburn system of streets and lanes(a typical Radburn lane is a scant 400feet in length) What is even more re-vealing about the new urbanist pre-disposition is what is missing fromthis essential and widely respectedreference volume In the ldquoblocktypesrdquo section several block confor-mations are diagrammed but no cul-de-sac infiltrated ldquosuperblockrdquo ap-pears (Hoke 2000 p 89) And underthe ldquoopen space typerdquo heading onlyopen spaces directly bounded at leastin part by streets make their appear-ancemdashno protected Radburn-styleinterior spaces are to be found(Hoke 2000 p 89) All this is quiteconsistent with the new urbanist as-sertion that the very concept of com-munity open space is meaninglesswhen the open space is detachedfrom the very public street networkand the effective censorship of ex-amples of detached interior openspace from the featured planningtypologies demonstrates the totalityof the new urbanist dismissal of thislandscape

The new urbanist argument isthat the Radburn concept was far tooradical an example of overreachingmodernism and cultural discontinu-ity heedlessly tossing aside tradi-tional town-making principlesgrounded in centuries of urban expe-rience (Krieger 1991)11 With hisldquoTown for the Motor Agerdquo new ur-banists maintain that Stein was notadjusting to the reality of motoringin everyday life so much as he wasrunning away from the problemleaving a trail of unintended conse-quences in his wake The new urban-ists are only the latest critics to pointout that Radburn not only lacks pro-per public streetscapes but that the

Martin 157

Figure 1 Radburn as envisioned and Radburn as-built Most of the area not yet developedprior to the economic crisis of 1929 was later re-platted for more standard forms ofresidential development (Drawing by author)

neighborhood is intently inwardly fo-cused a landscape island lackingmeaningful connections outside of it-self This critical position has meritbut the new urbanist counterpro-posal seems to be little more than thetriumph of hope over experienceNew urbanists offer beautifully nos-talgic visions of small-town-livingfront-porch-sitting sidewalk-strollingparallel-parking12 contentment (Fig-ure 2) but there has yet to emerge anew urbanist design proposal whichconfronts the fundamental issue thatStein so famously and radically con-fronted over eighty years ago motor-ing can be dangerous for pedestri-ans

The automobilization of every-day life was a dramatic social disconti-nuity and an inescapable inevitableone any coherent vision for newcommunity form cannot disregardthis obvious truth New urbanist com-munities are indeed an attractive al-ternative for certain demographicgroupsmdashparticularly ldquoDINKsrdquo13

(double income-no kids) and empty-nestersmdashbut those same DINKs willoften flee to the protective cover of aRadburn-inspired garden suburb cul-de-sac as soon as their firstborn be-comes a pedestrian For all its anti-urbanity Radburn did one thing verywell its landscape protected chil-dren not just from cars but from theuncertain dangers inherent in thevery publicness of the communitystreet For a contemporary designerto consider that a communityrsquos ldquoges-

turerdquo of openness toward publicstreets (and by extension to the wideworld to which these streets providedirect linkage) is a matter of civicduty is not simply to ignore or denythe very real problems this poses forresident children and their familiesit also constitutes a dismissal of theseventy-year-old cultural legacy ofRadburn a pervasive American sub-urban landscape that reflects to anequivalent degree both the love ofand fear of the moving automobile

Reconsidering RadburnrsquosTrue Radicalism

To acknowledge this evolvedpostwar suburban landscape as a logi-cal protective cultural response isnot tantamount to accepting its formas inevitable neither does this ac-knowledgment address the perfectlyreasonable criticisms leveled by sub-urbiarsquos detractors What it does do issuggest that the starting point for re-imagining the twenty-first centurycommunity is not the charmingly an-tique urban landscape that precededautomobiles but is rather thoseplaces that demonstrate the earlypartly successful attempts to recon-cile the car and the home neighbor-hood landscapemdashthat would be Rad-burn itself and the very few of itsimitators that were faithful to its con-cept It makes sense to begin with theobservation that Radburn was ex-traordinarily successful in at leastthat one essential responsibility theprotection of resident children14

Next it is necessary to discern howRadburn accomplished this goal inorder to understand what the impli-cations are for contemporary prac-tice After this point one would bein an appropriate position to beginto critique the Radburn schemersquosshortcomings and would be thusequipped to suggest adjustments oralternative arrangements that couldconceivably refine the concept forcontemporary living

As noted above Radburn wasthe inspiration for many subsequentsuburban community forms It wouldbe a mistake however to assume that

the 1930s Greenbelt Towns the1960s New Towns and the innumer-able planned unit developments(Jarvis 1993)15 of the latter third ofthe twentieth century which appro-priated the Radburn interior open-space pattern were continually refin-ing the Radburn concept Theseubiquitous examples are Radburnrsquossuccessors but they do not really rep-resent the evolution of the Radburnidea because Radburn is a ldquofrag-mentrdquo in more than just the physicalsense Not only was the original morecomprehensive scheme aborted withdevelopment halted after the con-struction of only two incomplete su-perblocks (Figure 1)16 (Radburnmight more accurately be describedas a ldquogarden neighborhoodrdquo than inany respect as a garden city)mdashmoreimportantly the essential radicalismof Radburn was abandoned as wellStein did indeed establish substantialand continuous pedestrian openspace as the organizing principle ofhis plan which is the aspect of Rad-burn often imitated But this was onlythe starting pointmdasheven in the exist-ing fragment he went much furtherin two important ways both of whichreflect his antipathy toward the streetas inhabitable community spaceFirst he reversed the homes and hadthem actually face the interior parkSecond he reduced the streets to aminimalist scale to the point wherethey were no longer streets even innamemdashseventy-plus years later resi-dents still refer to them as ldquolanesrdquojust as Stein had them labeled on hisplans In reality they are little morethan communal driveways or unusu-ally well kept dead-end17 back-alleys

In reversing the homes andminimizing the streetscape Steinmeant to force community life to fo-cus inward onto its interior parkReasoning from the perspective of alate 1920s planner he did not imag-ine the extent to which the automo-bile would eventually become centralto routine activities in the lives of notonly commuting wage-earners but ofall residents even ldquohomeboundrdquomothers and children He had in-tended for Radburnrsquos park to be notjust safe passage for children to andfrom school and between neighbor-ing homes but for the park to be-

158 Landscape Journal

Figure 2 The oddly car-less twenty-firstcentury new urbanist streetscapemarketing vision town center view in theSomerset development in Ames Iowadesigned by Duany Plater-Zyberk ampCompany (Image used with permissionof DPZ)

come the social matrix for familymembers who would only rarely haveoccasion to venture beyond the com-munityrsquos limits In other words thepark was meant to displace the streetand the only role left for the streetwas one of service access and car stor-age In later decades Steinrsquos succes-sors acknowledged the more pro-minent role of the automobile byabandoning both of Steinrsquos truly rad-ical strategies The 1960s New TownColumbia Maryland for example(Tennenbaum 1996) replicates Rad-burnrsquos superblock18 and grade-separated pedestrian streetcrossings19 but features both street-facing houses and a full-scale subur-ban street network (Martin 1999)20

New Town planners of the1960s surely believed that what theyhad done was to borrow from Rad-burnrsquos successes while avoiding itsoversights updating the concept toaccommodate the modern reality ofvastly increased automobile useWhat they perhaps did not ade-quately consider is what they gave upin the process By editing out Rad-burnrsquos radical ldquomistakesrdquo suburbanplanners may well have overlookedthe potential for a truly innovative re-sponse to the expanding role of theautomobile in community life

It must first of all be acknowl-edged that the ldquoreversedrdquo home is in-deed a problematic concept becauseany house is more than simply a unitof domestic architecturemdashit is alandscape entity bounded by differ-entiated territorial zones which gov-ern particular associated domesticsocial conventions (Rapaport 1969)Turning the homersquos traditionally ldquopub-licrdquo face away from the street has dra-matic implications for both the streetas well as for the landscape that de-velops on the opposite side As thisauthor noted in his study of the his-tory of Winnipegrsquos RadburnesqueWildwood Park

This reversal [of house orienta-tion] creates at once both the op-portunity for enhanced connec-tions among residences along witha certain degree of social-landscapeambiguity In short the reversed

concept has both salient strengthsand apparent drawbacks and be-cause of this the arrangement hasnever really gained any significantdegree of acceptance among devel-opers in North America (Martin2001)21

Radburnrsquos reversed homes arestill something of a curiosity becausethis strategy has not often beenadopted for subsequent develop-ments of single- or even two-familyhousing While it is certainly routinepractice to ldquoreverserdquo the front entriesof medium- and higher-density apart-ment or townhouse residences to-ward their common open spaces andaway from their parking lots it is un-usual to find lower-density neighbor-hoods in North America that forsakethe traditional streetscape in order toremain faithful to this particular Rad-burn innovation The primary draw-back is easily imagined confusionand uncertainty for ldquooutsiderrdquo visi-tors seeking walk-up access which

cannot be discerned from the ap-proach by car Walk-up access as op-posed to drive-up access is often nec-essary at Radburn at least for visitorsSteinrsquos reduction of the internalstreetscape adds further difficulty forthe visitor as the lanes themselvestypically fail to provide adequateguest parking22

The question that occurs iswhether the parking conveniencevisitor approach issues are so impor-tant as to warrant abandonment ofeither the reversed concept or theminimum-capacity lanes In the firstplace is parking and approach con-venience a singular prerogative oflower density neighborhoods ormight we accept this condition here aswe commonly do in neighborhoods ofhigher densities Secondly it is thenew urbanists themselves who rou-tinely advocate parking and approachinconvenience in retail and institu-tional settings by locating parking lotsout of view behind buildingsmdashall for

Martin 159

Figure 3 Wildwood Park illustrated in plan view (Plan used with permission of WildwoodPark History Book Committee)

the sake of the pedestrian and for thevisual quality of the streetscape Rad-burn does provide for visitor parkingparallel-style on the streets that de-fine the edges of the superblocksThis may of course necessitate awalk of up to a few hundred feet forthe visitor

The initial premise is that it isworth reconsidering the visitorrsquos con-venience issue for the sake of investi-gating the potential of the reversedconcept and the neighborhood laneto provide contemporary inspirationfor neighborhood-scale designWhile we must acknowledge the in-herent ambiguities and difficultiesposed by Steinrsquos solutions we canalso bear witness to their positive im-plications for community-building Itshould also be obvious that experi-mental Radburn itself was not and isnot the final word on the reversedpattern While Radburn has had fewtrue imitators some do exist and abeginning point for a contemporaryanalysis of reversed homes and lanesmight be a study comparing and con-trasting Radburn with other neigh-borhoods which adhered to Rad-burnrsquos radical design principles butcarried the experiment further bymodifying other essential site-planning parameters Wildwood Parkin Winnipeg Manitoba is one suchexample

Radburn and Wildwood Park the Evolution of an Idea

Wildwood Park is a contempo-rary of Long Island New Yorkrsquos Levit-town and like Levittown and hun-dreds of other North Americanstarter-home developments of thelate 1940s was built to meet the in-tense postwar housing demand cre-ated both by the lag in new homeconstruction during the war yearsand by the horde of prospectivehome-buying veterans who were inturn financially backed by new fed-eral home-loan programs in bothCanada and the United States (Har-ris and Larkham 1999 Bacher 1993Doucet and Weaver 1991 Miron1988 Smith 1974)23 Wildwood Parkwas directly inspired by Radburn24

and builderdeveloper Hubert Birdsought to create the same sort of


Figure 4 Same-scale diagrammatic comparison of streetopen space schemes of Radburn(left) and Wildwood Park (right) (Drawing by author)

Figure 5 Same-scale comparison of a typical Radburn lane and a typical Wildwood Parkloop-lane Hatched areas denote extent of visually accessible front-yard park space(Drawing by author)

community focus on a common inte-rior landscape Unlike most Radburnadmirers Bird bought wholeheart-edly into Steinrsquos radicalism Birdrsquospreliminary scheme designed by thearchitecture firm Green Blanksteinand Russell (GBR) reversed thehomes to arrange them around acentral open space contained withina single seventy-five-acre superblockand backed them upon an internalstreet pattern which featured a blendof Radburnesque ldquohammerheadrdquo cul-de-sacs and U-shaped looped lanes(Figure 3) In their design review thearchitects and planners in the Cana-dian Housing Administrationrsquos Ot-tawa office offered high praise forthe scheme but cautioned that thehammerheads would make for diffi-cult access by delivery vehicles andrecommended circular turnaroundsin lieu of the hammerheads25 In re-sponse Bird and GBR simply elimi-nated all the cul-de-sacs in favor ofmore looped lanes

This variation in street patternconstitutes the most immediately ap-parent difference between the plansof Radburn and Wildwood Park (Fig-ure 4) Not only did this strategy im-prove vehicular maneuverability ithad the further consequences of in-creasing each lanersquos population26 andof fragmenting the matrix of theldquofront yardrdquo landscape such that eachof the ten loops contained an ap-pendage of the central open space(Figure 5) A second important dis-tinction in the plan was the dimen-sional relationship between homesand lanes and the provision for ex-cess parking along lanes In Rad-burn as noted previously the lanesare minimally proportioned provid-ing little more than access to residentgarages and the occasional odd park-ing space adjacent to the back side ofa house Radburnrsquos houses are setvery closely to their lanersquos edgemdashsometimes only about twenty feetmdashwhich both constrains opportunitiesfor visitor parking and compressesback yard dimensions to a minimum(Figure 6) In Wildwood Park Birdhad his designers provide for a trueback yard setting houses about fiftyfeet from the lanersquos edge in addi-tion the thirty-foot Wildwood Park

lane cross-section was designedspecifically to accommodate parallelparking along both sides (Figure 7)

Parks and Lane-scapes as ldquoFiguredGroundrdquo

The essential distinctions be-tween these two communities how-ever transcend the limitations of aplan-view analysis any meaningful as-sessment of their respective land-scapes requires an engagement withwhat Elizabeth Meyer would describe

as their experiential ldquofiguredgroundrdquo (Meyer 1997)27 Each com-munity features as its organizationalframework an extensive ldquoparkrdquo land-scape that connects the front sides ofhomes but these two parks have dra-matically different origins The landupon which Radburn was built in thelate 1920s had been a topographi-cally level spinach farm featuring nosignificant drainage ways and essen-tially no vegetative landscape struc-ture As a response to this dauntingvisual barrenness Stein engaged theservices of landscape architect Mar-jorie Sewell Cautley to transform a

Martin 161

Figure 6 The figured ground of the Radburn hammerhead lane-scape Minimal lane-sideyard space constrains most backyard uses other than car storage (Drawing by author)

farm into a park Cautley designedfoundation and territorial ldquoedgerdquoplanting for each homersquos front yardand established trees within thebroad intervening spaces uponwhich some of the front yardsfaced28

Seventy years later Cautleyrsquoslegacy is twofold The parkrsquos broadinterior landscape has fully maturedreplete with an umbrageous canopywhich belies its treeless agriculturalheritage (These days as the originalplantings mature and decline they

are periodically supplemented byldquomemorialrdquo plantings contributed byresidents)29 At the parkrsquos edges andalong the pathways that run parallelbetween adjacent lanes on the frontyard borders one finds a variablecondition Some homes maintain vi-sual openness with the park or thepathway but many ldquohiderdquo behindhedges that have grown above eyelevel (Figure 8) This is more oftenthe case for the majority of homeswhich face the front of anotherhome that is served by an adjacent

lane and is less frequently observedbordering homes located at the ter-minus of the lanes which face themore generous dimensions of thebroad pastoral interior Peeking overor through these pathway-hugginghedges one can find privatization ofoutdoor space in the form of smalldecks and patios (Figure 9)30 This


Figure 8 The varying permeability of thelandscape interface between Radburnfront yards and the common parkCautleyrsquos edge plantings were installed todemarcate territory and reduce spatialscale in the treeless expanse of anerstwhile spinach farm (Photo byauthor)

Figure 9 A Radburn front-yard patio asseen through the living room window ofthe residence interior open space andthe fronts of other residences can beseen in the background (Photo byauthor)

Figure 7 The figured ground of the Wildwood Park lane-scape Diverse and routine useof backyards activate the lane-scape as an intimate social domain (Drawing by author)

feature reflects a certain ambiva-lencemdasha conflicting impulse to bothldquobelongrdquo to the landscape commonsand to be at least partially protectedfrom its publicness This ambivalenceis also manifested in Radburnrsquos con-temporary management practicesWhile there have been no attemptsto remove or reduce Cautleyrsquos origi-nal edge plantings residents are notfree to establish visual barriers alongfront yard edges where they do notyet exist31

The ldquoparkrdquo in Wildwood Parkoffers a distinct contrast It too isfilled with mature trees but most ofthe homes maintain a visually openrelationship with the interior (Figure10) It turns out that this has every-thing to do with the original land-scape conditionmdashBird had chosenfor his development a parcel within aforested floodplain so the trees werealready there at the time of construc-tion For years prior to developmentBird had lived adjacent to this wood-land which was almost surroundedby a sharp bend in the wide sluggishRed River He had frequently hikedthe land paddled a canoe along itsriver edge and contemplated a vari-ety of development scenarios whichmight best integrate with the indige-nous landscape (Nelson and Crock-ett 1984 Reimer 1989) As a conse-quence Wildwood Park reflects bothan abstract planning philosophy aswell as a place-specific landscape con-servation approach

One might question whether itmatters how the park became a parkin these two developments the dif-ference is reflected in the nature ofthe landscape relationship betweenhomes and park Bird directed hisconstruction crews to save as manytrees as possible so they even dugfoundations by hand where necessary(Figure 11) With a forest in placethroughout the park from the begin-ning there was little incentive to addmore plantings to demarcate terri-tory or to scale down the open spaceArchitecture played a role as wellBirdrsquos small prefabricated starterhomes all featured ldquopicture windowsrdquolooking out to the leafy expanse of

the park immediately establishing avaluable ldquoviewshedrdquo for each resi-dence which residents have sought tomaintain for over fifty years (Figure12) Initially there were no neighbor-hood bylaws which prohibited front-yard screening but in any event thepractice was rare and generallyfrowned upon because it was consid-ered antisocial (Nelson and Crockett1984)32 In 1984 after thirty-five yearshad passed and the population haddiversified residents amended thebylaws to proscribe fences or ldquo landscaping features placed in afront yard in such a manner as toprovide a fence effectrdquo (Bayne 1945amended 1984)33 This came aboutbecause a few modest front-yardplantings had matured to the pointwhere they were breaking up longviews under the tree canopy withinthe park Although this had hap-pened only in isolated cases such wasthe reverence for the open park land-scape that the proposed amendmentto the bylaws passed a homeownersrsquovote with only one dissension out ofone hundred votes cast

Complementary Front andBack Landscapes

There is another factor whichbears directly upon the difference inthese two park landscapes the con-sideration for how the design of therespective lanes affected the land-scape on the other side of thehouses for the front and back land-scapes are inextricably linked (Figure13) At Radburn the home propertyadjoining the lane is minimal andhence there is little if any opportu-nity for use or individual expressionin these places Radburnites whowish to control some portion of theirown outdoor property have littlechoice but to attempt to do this inthe front yardmdashthat is the yard ad-joining the park or adjoining thepathways which lead to the parkmdashhence the frequent incidence of ldquopri-vatizationrdquo of the spaces between thehome and the park and the resultingproblem of conflicting impulsesmentioned earlier In WildwoodPark on the other hand there is asmall but (when compared with Rad-burn) relatively generous rear-sideplot of land which residents are free

Martin 163

Figure 10 Expansive openness is thenorm among Wildwood Park front yardsview is from the interior of a loop-lanesection (Photo by author)

Figure 11 Digging foundations whilesaving trees at Wildwood Park duringconstruction in 1947 (Photo used withpermission of Wildwood Park HistoryBook Committee)

Figure 12 An early spring view through aWildwood Park living roomrsquos ldquopicturerdquowindow across the front yard to the frontof another home Some of the parkrsquos less-frequently-used walkways are impassableduring Winnipegrsquos lengthy snow season(Photo by author)


Figure 13 Same-scale sections through Radburn (top) and Wildwood Park (bottom) front yards and back yards Note how Cautleyrsquosplantings at Radburn serve to structure front yard space for privacy and note the importance of detached garages in structuringWildwood Parkrsquos lane-scapes (Drawing by author)

Figure 14 A playhouse installed along alane-edge fence in Wildwood ParkResidents have the freedom to constructtheir backyards as needed to suit theirdiverse needs Photo ca 1974 bySiegfried Toews and used with hispermission

Figure 15 A diversity of everyday activities activates the Wildwood Park lane-scape Photo ca 1974 by Siegfried Toews and used with his permission

to shape according to their needs(Figure 14) This is where one willfind nearly all of the ldquoprivatizationrdquoand most of the individualized land-scape expression in Wildwood ParkSignificantly this space is on the in-formal ldquoservicerdquo side of the house soit is contiguous with the kitchen thekitchenrsquos window and with the door-way that is used most frequently forarrival for departure and for gen-eral access These rear yards in Wild-wood Park are widely diverse and in-teresting places because each reflectsor reveals the habits or desires of theindividual resident families Most res-idents have built garages within theseyards and for many the yards are pri-marily used for car storage But thereare also a great variety of other usesto be found on a stroll along thelane fenced yards for children orpets rabbit hutches low woodendecks patios paved walkways out-door furniture barbecue grills de-tached storage sheds miscellaneousplay structures ornamental gardenskitchen gardens staging area for out-door construction projects and soforth Many are neatly maintainedand some seem to be in a constantstate of unself-conscious casual disor-der They are truly ldquolibertarian land-scapesrdquo and the reason they are com-fortably liberated from the burden ofenforced orderliness is that Wild-wood Park residents have willingly ac-cepted those burdens for the land-scape on the other side of the housethe side that fronts the park

A criticism of Steinrsquos plan forRadburn having as we now do thehindsight afforded by several de-cades of landscape evolution inboth neighborhoods is that he didnot provide families with sufficientspace for semi-private outdoor use orpersonalizationmdashnor did he reallyunderstand how the park or laneswould come to be used socially a facthe acknowledged in the early 1950supon revisiting Radburn after a fullgeneration of landscape adaptationshad occurred34 Based on neighbor-hood cultural landscapes across abroad spectrum of housing develop-ment types one might surmise thatany neighborhood will tend to de-velop a ldquoformalrdquo side which reflectsqualities of orderliness homogene-

ity presentation and a sense of be-longing to something greater Aslandscapes of social expression andsocial function ldquofrontsrdquo and ldquobacksrdquoof neighborhoods correspond withsociologist Erving Goffmanrsquos dra-maturgical theory of human interac-tion (Goffman 1991) Goffman hastheorized that the human social per-sonality is partly composed of a ldquopre-sentational frontrdquo where social ldquoper-formancesrdquo (Goffman 1959) areconducted just as a playwright createsa stage-set as the scenographic mi-lieu replete with props and cos-tumes for the actorsrsquo affectationsbut every bit as essential to the socialpersonality is the messy unaffectedunself-conscious ldquobackstagerdquo whichcomplements and supports thestaged action

In North American neighbor-hoods the presentational front is usu-ally the side which faces the streetbut the example of Wildwood Parksuggests that this formal sceno-graphic landscape may develop op-posite the vehicular-accessed side ofthe house if there is something onthat opposite side worth belonging toor suitable for a ldquoperformancerdquomdashthat is a properly constructed andwell-maintained front stage Corre-spondingly such a neighborhood willtend to develop a complementary in-formal backstage landscape on theopposite side of the house if roomfor such is available In standard-issue front-loaded suburbs this is al-ways the back yard and that backyard is typically a landscape tuckedaway out of the common realm andfor the most part inaccessible (visu-ally or otherwise) to anyone otherthan those who dwell in the house35

In Wildwood Park this informallandscape is distributed all alongboth edges of each looping lane it isnot tucked away out of view and so itis a landscape which ldquoparticipatesrdquo ineveryday community life (Figure 15)To continue the dramaturgicalmetaphor Wildwood Park could belikened to the experimental theaterform which intentionally reveals thebackstage and the actionsevents

that normally take place out of theview of the audiencemdashbut this is anaudience it must be emphasizedwhich is composed almost exclusivelyof fellow performers In WildwoodPark the backstage lane-scapes arethe most socially interactive land-scapes even more so than the parkwhich these days tends to be viewedthrough the picture windows moreoften than it is actively inhabited byresidents

Radburnrsquos narrower lanes (Fig-ure 6) are (and always have been)the site of social interactions as wellIn spite of the frontback ambiguityinherent in the Radburn conceptRadburn residents report that onemight encounter ldquoanybodyrdquo withinRadburnrsquos park and connectingpathways but typically one encoun-ters only neighbors in the lane-scapeThe lanes are activated socially by thesimple process of routine arrival anddeparture to and from the home36

and in spite of the minimal area af-forded they tend to attract residentchildren who sometimes prefer thepaved surfaces to the grassy expanseof the park Radburn kitchens facethe lanes just as they do at WildwoodPark and the ldquoeyesrdquo on the lanethrough kitchen windows is a reasonfor Radburn parents to cautiously ap-prove of the lanes as playscapes Asnoted however the relative lack ofspace constrains the sort of usespractices and incidental landscapemodifications plainly evident alongWildwood Park lanes

The Wildwood Park lane (Fig-ure 7) can be said to be a successfullyupdated elaboration of the Radburnlanemdashboth because it accommo-dates more resident and visitor park-ing37 and because it is enlivened by amore complex and active perimeterof diverse back yards It has every-thing going for it that new urbanistshope to achieve on their hypotheticalldquolivable streetsrdquo in terms of commu-nity life but no self-respecting newurbanist would appreciate or endorsethese lanes as proper streetscapes Asnoted these lanes exist on the infor-mal unpretentious back side of resi-dences and hence they have much incommon with traditional back-alleys(Figure 16) which new urbanistsvalue primarily for their service-

Martin 165

accommodation potential (Fulton1997) Like back-alleys WildwoodPark lanes are neither orderly norare they truly public38 If they had tobe regulated and maintained so as toapproach the new urbanist aestheticideal of the classic neighborhoodstreetscape or if they were situated inthe neighborhood in such a mannerthat they invited ldquooutsiderrdquo trafficthey would surely have become dif-ferent places than they are today Asthey exist they constitute vital neigh-borhood ldquodefensiblerdquo space (New-man 1969) It must be strongly em-phasized that this defensibleness isan aspect that derives from both thelanesrsquo safe connection to the homelandscapes and from the lack of anyreal gesture toward a civic ideal ofpublicness

Addressing the World Beyondthe Neighborhood

Of course Wildwood Park is

not an island and there must besome consideration for its relation-ship to the world beyond In practiceWildwood Parkrsquos public threshold isthe perimeter of the superblock justas at Radburn Here we encounterthe visitorrsquos convenience dilemmathe stranger or tourist can park his orher car along the perimeter lane-collector road and then choose to ei-ther approach residences throughthe formal front landscape of thepark (Figure 17) or alternatively towander on foot along the intimatelanes Either way such a visitor islikely soon to be noticed39 as an out-sider as not being one of the recog-nizable ldquofamiliar fewrdquo (Lynch 1990)who inhabit either connective spaceon a regular basis Convenience forvisitors is what Wildwood Park likeRadburn sacrifices for the sake of se-curity

Wildwood Park draws the civic-interface line well beyond the inti-mate realm of routine family homelife a condition which can be read asexclusionary It is certainly not gated

but it is nevertheless inherently pro-tective in its general orientation as isRadburn To argue that WildwoodPark or Radburn is a model worthy ofconsideration for informing contem-porary neighborhood design is to dis-miss the new urbanist notion that thisprotectiveness constitutes a socialpathology and to refute the apparentnew urbanist assumption that neigh-borhood scale and concern for aneighborhoodrsquos ldquoinner liferdquo (as op-posed to its broader civic life) are nota consideration in establishing neigh-borhood cohesion neighborhoodidentity and supportive relationshipsamong neighbors

One Radburn couple who havebeen residents of Radburn since1949 provided a particularly insight-ful perspective on their neighbor-hoodrsquos evolution as a social land-scape over the past half-century Assecond-generation Radburnites (theyare the second owners of their homehaving moved in during the year ofRadburnrsquos twentieth anniversary)they have always lived among neigh-bors of diverse ages and note thatthe landscape has always stronglysupported a broad diversity of bothplanned and incidental communal


Figure 16 The highly interactive archaicback-alley as essential neighborhoodsocial and recreational interior domainLaddrsquos Addition Portland Oregon(Photo by author)

Figure 17 The pedestrian corridorthrough Wildwood Parkrsquos front-sidelandscape shared by residents andvisitors (Photo by author)

Figure 18 Radburn ldquoFamily Dayrdquo August 2000 On this occasion activities are centered inthe main recreation area but range throughout the extensive interior open space(Photo by author)

activities irrespective of demo-graphic mix They say that the neigh-borhood itself has proved throughthe years to be structured in a waythat ldquofacilitates friendshipsrdquomdashthelane for immediate neighbors andthe park for the community at largeThis couple who like many of theirneighbors have raised children atRadburn stress the tremendous sig-nificance of the open space structurein establishing a safe useful com-plex and explorable inter-connectivelandscape for the interactions of chil-dren which in turn has routinely fos-tered social connections among theirparents throughout the community

This landscape-as-meeting-ground condition has persisted incontemporary times even now thatthe activities of resident children aremore often focused on recreationaland extracurricular events that occuroutside the neighborhood (and towhich they must be chauffeured byparents) The Radburn Associationno longer sponsors the extent ofneighborhood recreation programsthat were established when theneighborhood was new (Hudson1934) but informal incidental recre-ational and social use of the commonspaces (along with periodic plannedcommunity events such as the annualRadburn ldquoFamily Dayrdquo in Augustwhich the author witnessed in 2000)continue to activate the communitysocially (Figure 18) and to under-score Radburnrsquos identity as a place towhich its residents ldquobelongrdquo

The long-term resident coupleinterviewed acknowledged manychanges over the past fifty years butat the same time found it ldquocomfort-ingrdquo that during their tenancy Rad-burn has not undergone dramaticlandscape change as has occurred inthe surrounding neighborhoods ofFair Lawn The couple perceives Rad-burn as a sort of social oasis in factthey used to worry that growing up inRadburn would leave their childrenunprepared for eventual life in theworld beyond What actually oc-curred they related was that theirchildren became well adjusted so-cially which they attribute in part totheir childrenrsquos socialization amonga large and relatively diverse neigh-borhood contingent They also noted

that each of their adult children wholong ago moved away to establishprofessional and family life in othercities has sought to establish resi-dency in a Radburn-like neighbor-hood contextmdashbut each has yet tofind this circumstance elsewhere

Both partners in this couple arenow retired and note that Radburnis an excellent environment for re-tirees because of that same extensiveand inter-connected interior land-scape and because of the accessiblebus system which serves Fair LawnWhile the proportion of elderly andchildless residents appears to have in-creased in recent years the commu-nity is still home to a significant num-ber of young children such that theirnoisy presence remains very much inevidence (Figure 19)mdashbut this is not aconflict (according to interviewees)because of the scale and arrange-ment of the common spaces but alsobecause Radburnites are condi-tioned to be ldquoacceptingrdquo of theirdiverse neighbors40

With respect to the issue of di-versity it must be noted that homevalues have recently appreciated con-siderably at Radburn The couplewho paid $12500 for their Radburnhome in 1949 could now sell it foraround $325000 another residentwho paid $48500 in 1973 could finda market for her home in the rangeof $250000-$275000 The least ex-pensive owner-occupied homes inRadburn today are townhouseswhich are valued at about $200000and a few of the larger extensively in-ternally modernized park-facinghomes could bring close to$50000041 This sudden appreciationis part of a rapidly escalating trendfor values of homes within easy com-muting distance from Manhattanwhich lies only about sixteen miles tothe east and is readily accessible bycar rail or bus In spite of this escala-tion in value and the exclusiveness itimplies at the present time Rad-burnrsquos residents include a range oflower middle- to middle-income fam-ilies and individuals

Wildwood Park has witnessed a

somewhat less-dramatic escalation ofhome values but the neighborhoodenjoys a similar local reputation as anenclave whose property values are en-hanced significantly by the presenceof its inter-connected interior parkIn Wildwood Park there seems to bea greater range of home valuationsprobably because there are far fewerrigid architectural controls on modi-fications to the homes In Radburnthe trustees of the Radburn Associa-tion (an elected body of fifty-two in-dividuals thirty-eight of whom areRadburn residents) have establishedregulations which generally pro-scribe radical transformations ofhome exteriors The most commonform of remodeling at Radburn is in-terior upgrading enclosure of front-yard and side-yard porches and con-

Martin 167

Figure 19 Although the overall residentpopulation has aged and nowadays manyextracurricularrecreational youthactivities occur beyond the confines ofthe neighborhood children remain asignificant presence in Radburnrsquoslandscape (Photo by author)

Figure 20 View through a WildwoodPark lane-facing window into a backyardNote the substantially enlarged andreconstructed home visible in thebackground across the lane (Photo byauthor)

version of garages42 In contrastWildwood Park features several ex-amples of homes that have been ex-tensively modified some to the pointthat they appear to be replacementsfor the original structure In Wild-wood Park one occasionally encoun-ters an inconspicuous wood-sidedone-story 1948-era prefabricatedhome of less than 1000 square feetstanding adjacent to a very contem-porary 1990s two-and-a-half storystucco-finished home of perhaps3000 square feet (Figure 20) The in-cidence of this sort of extensive re-modeling at Wildwood Park can beattributed to both the neighbor-hoodrsquos more libertarian covenantsand to the local reputation that theneighborhood enjoys Some of theseremodels were undertaken by newresidents but reportedly (Nelsonand Crockett 1984) many were ac-complished by long-term residentswho needed to significantly upgradeor increase the size of their homebut strongly desired to ldquostay putrdquo inWildwood Park because of theunique qualities of the neighbor-hood Like the children of the Rad-burn couple mentioned above theseWildwood Park residents were notfinding anything comparable to theirbeloved neighborhood in the worldbeyond

Both Radburn and WildwoodPark have a thoroughly middle-classheritagemdashWildwood Park originallyas pure ldquostarterrdquo homes43 and Rad-burn initially serving a slightly higher-income level Although each neigh-borhood presently sustains ademographically diverse populationthat condition is of course imperiledby escalating real estate values anddemographic diversity may eventuallybecome a victim of the neighbor-hoodsrsquo notable qualitiesmdasha phenom-enon encountered in all develop-ments that achieve success in thereal-estate marketplace even new ur-banist examples Unquestionablyhowever both neighborhoods haveover several decades of evolutionproven to be viable and to varyingdegrees adaptable community formsWithin their respective suburban con-texts both neighborhoods enjoy anunusually powerful sense of commu-nity identity the foundation of which

is the landscape which constitutedthe organizing principle for eachHowever Wildwood Park has moresuccessfully adapted to the twenty-first century culture of automobilityand in so doing it stands as an exem-plary model for a contemporary un-derstanding of the relationship be-tween neighborhood form andneighborhood social dynamics

Conclusion Implications forContemporary Planning

Steinrsquos admitted miscalculationwas in imagining that he could effec-tively separate people and cars simplyby providing an ample and attractivehaven from cars Radburn itselfproved not only that this was unreal-istic but that people and cars couldindeed interact safely in particularcircumstances (Eubank-Ahrens1991)44 Wildwood Park provides cor-roboration for the possibility of safepedestrianvehicular interactionand beyond that demonstrates howthe Radburn design parameters canbe adjusted in such a way that thescope of available community spaceis both expanded and diversified IfRadburnrsquos great success was theachievement of protection for chil-dren Wildwood Parkrsquos was the en-hanced socialization of the lane as asignificant community landscape

The Radburn lane as noted isthe setting for regular social activitybut activity that is most often occa-sioned by arrival and departure theRadburn lane is a true ldquonoderdquo inKevin Lynch terms (Lynch 1960)However the Radburn lane is not somuch a place to be in its own rightbecause of the paucity of useful oradaptable space between homes andlane of necessity the lane is primarilydedicated to car storage (Figure 21)Although there are significant ma-ture trees established intermittentlyin the gaps between driveways con-tributing to Radburnrsquos overall park-like atmosphere the general lack ofbackyard space dictates a ratherstraightforward non-complex unlay-ered quality The house faccedilades in-variably predominate as they stand

quite close to the lanersquos edge Oneinterviewee at Radburn noted that inthe 1960s and 1970s some residentspersonalized their homes by paint-ing them bright colors This was notmuch of an issue on the park side ofthe homes where spaces are muchmore generous and where Cautleyrsquosplantings intervened but on the rela-tively intimate Radburn lane the ef-fect could be overwhelming Themore recent trend corresponding toboth more conservative architecturalstyles and higher home market valuehas been toward homogeneity of thelane-scape through compatible paintschemes and a regularized well-maintained ornamental foundationplanting treatment All of this under-scores the importance of the Rad-burn lane as a community space but


Figure 21 Car storage predominates inthe Radburn lane-scape (Photo byauthor)

Figure 22 The Wildwood Park lane-scapes are the ldquobackstagerdquo setting for avariety of incidental neighborhoodactivities Despite the presence of movingand stationary cars the lanes have alwaysbeen considered safe play space forresident children (Photo ca 1974 bySiegfried Toews and used with hispermission)

also militates against a diverse or ex-pressive landscape character

In contrast the ldquosocialrdquo lane isembedded within Wildwood Parkmdashembedded within its very landscapeand not just serving as an access con-duit among the dominating backfaccedilades of the homesmdashand this laneis continually activated by a great di-versity of things happening routinelyalong its edges (Figure 22) As withRadburn there are many residentldquoeyesrdquo on the lane through windowsperforating the backs of the homesbut also ldquoeyesrdquo from the active lane-facing back yards themselves TheWildwood Park lane of course carriestrafficmdashmore traffic than a Radburnlane due to its looped form and thegreater number of homes served byeach lane (Figure 5)mdashbut almost ex-clusively this intermittent traffic con-sists of residents or their visiting ac-quaintances As a result vehicleoperators are generally respectful ofnormative neighborhood driving andparking conventionsmdashjust as is thecase at Radburn In contrast with thelack of control exercised over theWildwood Park lanersquos aesthetic char-acter there is a powerful degree ofcontrol exercised over the way thelane ldquoworksrdquo as an integrative com-munity landscape

In a truly publiccivic venue assanctioned by new urbanists thiscontrol could not be maintained be-cause of increased traffic flow morelikely and more frequent violationsof traffic norms by outsiders and theuncertainty posed merely by the pres-ence of a greater number of non-residents whether intruding in ve-hicles or as pedestrians The lanersquossocial dynamism is clearly a productof its internality If we accept the in-ternal lane as a possible model forthe contemporary neighborhoodstreet we could then reflect on issuesthat are presently of concern to resi-dents of Wildwood Park in order tounderstand how the concept couldbe further elaborated to meet twenty-first century needs (As noted previ-ously the residents-only internalstreet is antithetical to the street-as-publiccivic-realm precept of new ur-banism it is ironic to discover that atSeaside the prototypical new urban-ist village management found it nec-

essary after the fact to exclude ldquoout-siderrdquo automobile traffic by postingsignage [Figure 23] that prohibits allbut resident automobile traffic uponresidential streets)45 (Audirac andShermyen 1994)

There are two possible refine-ments to the Wildwood Park schemewhich are suggested by both observa-tion and anecdotal information ob-tained from residents The first ad-dresses the general issue of visitoraccess to homes As noted earlierGBR designed Wildwood Parkrsquos Rad-burn-style plan with the presumptionthat outside visitors would leave theirvehicles along the perimeter of thesuperblock and proceed on footthrough the park which constitutesthe front yard landscape in order toapproach homes at their front doorsThe problem with this presumptionis not simply that visitors expect topark directly at or very close to thehouse they are visiting (as they maydo when visiting almost any otherlow-density housing community)there is also nothing the visitor en-counters in the landscape that makesit explicit that this is the preferredpractice for outsidersmdashnor are thereldquowayfindingrdquo aids that could helpguide the visitor through the laby-rinthine park (Figures 24 and 3)once the visitor begins to seek thefront door on foot While it admit-tedly is a substantial challenge toredirect customary and normativeparking and access practices for visi-tors this is a design issue that cer-tainly could be addressed morethoughtfully than has been done atWildwood Park or even at Radburn

The second proposed refine-ment addresses the one ldquoglitchrdquo inthe site plan of Wildwood Park aboutwhich a number of residents expressdissatisfaction The ten looped lanesvary in their alignment but most areessentially three-sided featuring tworelatively sharp corners (Figures 25and 5) at the two internal verticesThis creates a conundrum similar toone encountered in the design ofsuburban cul-de-sacs for access tosmaller single-family lots Wildwood

Park lots which are situated on theoutside of the lane corners havegreatly reduced lane frontage andthis in turn creates an inequitabledistribution of available lane-edgeparking spaces Unlike those who re-side along straight stretches of thelanes an outside-corner lot dweller ishard-pressed to accommodate park-ing within his or her lot Also be-cause the outside-corner lotrsquos narrowfrontage must be wholly dedicated toits own drivewayrsquos access these resi-dents have no abutting lane-edgeparking space As the average num-ber of cars stored per residence hasincreased through the years46 thiscondition has generated occasionalterritorial friction among residentsWhile there is no apparent remedyfor this problem at Wildwood Parkthe contemporary designer might re-consider either lane geometry or lot

Martin 169

Figure 23 Ex-post-facto restriction ofaccess by visitor automobiles within theresidential blocks of Seaside Florida(Photo by author)

Figure 24 A walk in the park through theexpansive interior open space amongfront yards in Wildwood Park As atRadburn Wildwood Parkrsquos open spacecontains a scattering of recreationalfacilities for common use (Photo byauthor)

pattern (or both) in order to pre-clude this reduced-frontage di-lemma For most Wildwood Parkresidents there is at least adequateresident parking available The typi-cal condition at Radburn is some-what more acute (Figure 21) OneRadburn resident noted that the fourhouseholds located on his lanersquoshammerhead own a collective totalof seven carsmdashfewer than two perhouseholdmdashbut the confined spaceand tight geometry of the paving ne-cessitates a considerable amount ofldquojockeyingrdquo of cars which inevitablyblock each other in place

Another ldquoconveniencerdquo issueworth noting and well worth consid-ering for contemporary developmentis one that has powerful implicationsfor the lane-scape Radburnrsquos ga-rages47 are like those of most con-temporary houses integrated withthe house proper (Figure 26) Thisconstitutes a great convenience forresidents and is certainly of signifi-cant benefit during cold or wetweather periods or during times ofheavy snow accumulation as hap-pens intermittently in New Jerseyand routinely in southern ManitobaThe reason Wildwood Park garagesare detached is because they are notpart of the original house construc-tion the houses were constructed ascheaply as possible but Hubert Birdand GBR left sufficient rear yardspace to make possible the additionof garages later as an option for resi-dents What is most apparent to theobserver of the Wildwood Park lanetoday is that the detached garage isan essential structuring componentof the lane-side yard In many casesresidents have found the essentiallyprivate ldquopocketrdquo that is formed bythe space between the house and itsdetached garage to be a usefulhighly adaptable and intimate space(Figure 27) This is where one willfind many examples of personal out-door-use structures (patios lowdecks seatinglounging furnitureetc) for activities that are more com-fortably conducted at a slight remove

from the public interface with thelanersquos edge For residents who tendto maintain relatively tidy yards itmay be the place for storage of thingsthat they would like to conceal fromplain view such as tool sheds dogruns or trash receptacles These arefortuitous but essential spacesmdashin ef-fect they constitute the mitigatingfactor that allows the Wildwood Parkresident to mediate his or her back-yard landscape between its dual roleas both private outdoor realm and ac-tive ldquomemberrdquo of the social lane-scape

Wayfinding and isolated park-ing issues notwithstanding Wild-wood Park has firmly established its viability as a community land-scape Its matched set of comple-mentary integrative landscapeswork in concert to sustain a power-ful community focusmdashthe park forthe community as a whole and eachlane for its respective section The success of its adaptation andelaboration of the seventy-year-oldRadburn model challenges contem-porary new urbanist assumptionsabout publicly oriented streetscapesand reaffirms the wisdom and prag-matism intrinsic to Clarence Steinrsquosradical ldquogarden-neighborhoodrdquocommunity experiment

Even so it is no more appro-priate to extol the Radburn plan(and its later elaborations) over allother possible neighborhood confor-mations than it is to present new ur-banist principles as a universal solu-tion as appears to be suggested bynew urbanist rhetoric and by surpris-ingly incomplete reference sourcessuch as Architectural Graphic Stan-dards Different neighborhoodschemes suit different populationsand demographic groups and theirpatterns are deeply connected withhistorical trends and with the pat-terns of human behavior Radburnand Wildwood Park represent oneparticular landscape mutation thatdeveloped in thoughtful and innova-tive response to significant social andcultural forces of the twentieth cen-tury as such these landscapes meritattention and further study by inno-vative planners of the twenty-firstcentury


Figure 26 The Radburn lane-scape asviewed through a second-story windowNote single-car garages and limitedavailable parking space a conditionexacerbated by the widespreadconversion of Radburn garages to non-garage use (Photo by author)

Figure 27 A rabbit hutch stashed out ofview in a Wildwood Park backyard withinthe happenstance intimate and veryuseful space which occurs between thehome and the detached garage (thegarage having been built several yearsafter the home was constructed) View isfrom back door stoop (Photo by author)

Figure 25 A Wildwood Park lane-scape inearly autumn Note the densification ofgarages in the background on theoutside corner of the looped laneOutside-corner lots have reduced lanefrontage which exacerbates lane-edgeparking territorial issues (Photo byauthor)

AcknowledgmentsThe author wishes to express his sincere ap-preciation for the invaluable contributions tothis effort by Louise Orlando Jean and DanRothermel Carl Nelson Ted McLachlan Bar-rie and Phyllis Webster and the great numberof hospitable residents at both Radburn andWildwood Park who offered their unique in-sights and gave very generously of their time

Notes1 Stein and Wright were both educated in ar-chitecture but Stein practiced primarily as acommunity plannertown planner whileWright practiced as a plannerlandscape ar-chitect Stein biographer Kermit Parsons notesthat at Radburn ldquoSteinrsquos architectural andcommunity planning skills were combinedwith Wrightrsquos site-design talent to invent andapply a totally new approach to community de-sign which Stein called lsquoa revolution in plan-ningrsquordquo (Parsons p 106)2 The towns of Letchworth and Welwyn andthe Hampstead Garden Suburb are the impor-tant English prototypes Stein and Wright trav-eled together to England and Europe to studyemerging garden city prototypes in 1924 justprior to their collaboration on the design forthe Sunnyside Gardens housing project in theNew York City borough of Queens Stein andWright experimented with site planning inno-vations at Sunnyside Gardens ldquoan experimen-tal low-density project of twelve-hundredhouses with shared inner courtyardsrdquo (Par-sons p 651) which were subsequently refinedat lower-density Radburn3 The RPAA was the Regional Planning Asso-ciation of America a New York City-based atel-ier comprised of ldquoarchitects economists socialreformers community designers urban crit-ics and writersrdquo (Parsons p 104) a groupwhose intellectual leader was Lewis Mumfordand of which Clarence Stein Henry WrightBenton MacKaye Charles Stern Ascher andFrederick Ackerman (among others) weremembers along with philanthropistreal es-tate developer A M Bing In 1924 Bing estab-lished the City Housing Corporation (CHC)which financed and developed both SunnysideGardens and Radburn Parsons notes that NewYork City of the 1920s was ldquoa cauldron of intel-lectual ferment rich in literary artistic and ar-chitectural innovationrdquo (Parsons p 107) TheRPAA sought to establish the garden city con-cept as a planning force in America4 The three constructed Greenbelt Towns in-cluded Greenbelt Maryland Greendale Wis-consin and Greenhills Ohio A fourth Green-belt TownmdashGreenbrook New Jerseymdashwasnever built due to opposition from adjacentlandowners5 Columbia (MD) Reston (VA) Jonathan(MN) Peachtree City (GA) and Irvine (CA)are examples of the American New Townswhich began development in the 1960s TheWoodlands near Houston (TX) represents

the New Town concept evolved as an ldquoeco-burbrdquo in which ecological planning was afoundation for community structure Thereare a great variety of publications which de-scribe and detail New Town planning philoso-phy and which pay tribute to Radburn as inspi-ration Good references for New Townsplanning strategies include James Bailey NewTowns in America The Design and DevelopmentProcess (New York John Wiley and Sons 1973)also Gideon Golany and Daniel Walden 1974The Contemporary New Communities Movement inthe United States (Urbana University of IllinoisPress 1974) A work that captures the spirit ofthe movementrsquos optimism is Carlos C Camp-bell New Towns Another Way to Live (RestonVirginia Reston Publishing Co Ltd 1970)For a retrospective view of the developmentprocess for one New Town example see Ten-nenbaumrsquos Creating a New City Columbia Mary-land (1996)6 For detailed information on Village Homesand evidence of Radburnrsquos influence upon itsplan see Corbett and Corbett 2000 and Cor-bett 1981 Village Homes makes many otherappearances in the literature see Girlingand Helphandrsquos 1994 Yard Street Park for a re-cent example7 Schafferrsquos book is the most comprehensiveretrospective of Radburn to date See Girlingand Helphandrsquos 1994 Yard Street Park for a con-cise contextualization of Radburn in open-space planning history as well as for furtherreferences to Radburn in the literature8 There are several publications from the pastdecade which establish new urbanismrsquos pre-cepts the most comprehensive and systematicreference being Leccese and McCormickrsquos1999 Charter of the New Urbanism9 For a recent perspective on Jacobsrsquo anti-garden city orientation see Malcolm Glad-wellrsquos ldquoDesigns for Working The Science ofOffices Moves beyond the Cubiclerdquo in The NewYorker Dec 11 2000 pp 60ndash70 Gladwell notesthat Jacobs ldquohatedrdquo Steinrsquos Chatham Village(in Pittsburgh) for its ldquolack of sidewalk liferdquo soenamored was she of the rich and complexdaily social life of her hometown GreenwichVillage (in Manhattan) and so convinced wasshe that this represented the urban ideal forall that she ldquowasnrsquot concerned that somepeople might not want an active street life intheir neighborhoodrdquo (p 70)10 Calthorpe faults garden city designs ini-tially on functional grounds noting that theyretained ldquofundamental modernist principlessegregation of use love of the auto and domi-nance of private over public space In theseutopias the street as the communityrsquos habit-able ground disintegratedrdquo He then faultstheir aesthetics ldquoThe next generation of newtowns should learn from these failures avoid-ing their sterile and suburban characterrdquo (p 33)11 ldquoAs reproduced indiscriminately through-out the western world for the past centuryrdquosays Krieger ldquothe garden suburb ceased to evenattempt to simulate the physical organization

of a town much less to host its social and po-litical structuresrdquo (p 13)12 New urbanist guidelines often call for par-allel parking along community streets claim-ing that the line of cars along a street estab-lishes a protective ldquowallrdquo or barrier betweensidewalks and streets Whether this ldquowallrdquo con-stitutes a protective barrier ormdashsince theldquowallrdquo has small gaps between cars which shortbut very mobile young children might on oc-casion dart through into the path of a sur-prised motoristmdashan actual streetscape hazardremains a serious question Like many othernew urbanist behavioral truisms this presump-tion is grounded more upon conjecture thanupon empirical evidencemdashand it is a pre-sumption peculiarly lacking in any thoughtfulconsideration for the welfare of childrenWhat new urbanists actually do know andwhat is the actual aesthetic basis of their affin-ity for on-street parking is that street parkingcan obviate both on-site parking and drive-ways which of necessity cut across the pedes-trian realm of the sidewalk and allow the carto invade the front yard In any case it is strik-ing how often drawings of streetscape viewsused as promotional illustrations for proposednew urbanist developments (Figure 2 is an ex-ample) completely eliminate cars from the pic-ture even cars parked along streets13 ldquoDinkrdquo a neologistic acronym meaningldquodouble income no kidsrdquo was coined to de-scribe the growing demographic family groupcomprised of couples who defer having chil-dren while both work full time 14 According to Radburn Association man-ager Louise Orlando there have been nopedestrian traffic fatalities on a Radburn lanein its 80 +-year history 15 Planned unit developments emerged as apopular planning phenomenon in the U S inthe 1970s as an alternative to single-use zon-ing PUD classification allowed developers tozone their projects to a specific land-use planwhich typically included a variety of housingtypes as well as non-residential land uses suchas neighborhood commercial and connectiveopen-space For a description and brief historyof PUDs see Frederick Jarvisrsquos 1993 site plan-ning manual16 Figure 1 portrays the extent of Radburn as-built compared with the master plan Of eightsuperblocks proposed only the two su-perblocks presently known as ldquoArdquo and ldquoBrdquoalong with two isolated cul-de-sacs (locatedwithin a never-realized third superblock to thesouth) were actually constructed Note how-ever that Radburn as-built does contain the el-ementary school and the communityrsquos pri-mary recreational-use node both of whichwould have been accessible to the entire devel-opment via grade-separated pedestrian pathshad the project been fully developed17 Or more precisely ldquolive-endrdquo back alleysin the parlance of plannerarchitect MarkChilds See his 1996 article ldquoThe Living Endrdquopp 14ndash15 Childs differentiates the innovativeldquolive-endrdquo cul-de-sacmdasha cul-de-sac which pro-vides for a pedestrian pathway connection con-tinuing beyond its terminus from a ldquodead-endrdquo cul-de-sac which provides no suchpathway Radburn lanes are perhaps the origi-

Martin 171

nal live-end cul-de-sacs as they feature narrowwalkways which thread between the homeswhich are situated on the hammerheads andthese narrow walkways (Figure 28) connectwith the pathways (Figure 29) which in turnconnect with Radburnrsquos park18 In his introduction to the 1956 edition ofSteinrsquos Toward New Towns for America LewisMumford extolled the virtues of the super-block ldquo the super-block with entrant cul-de-sacs (t)his admirable device for loweringroad costs increasing the amount of greenspace and creating tranquil domestic quartersfree from through trafficrdquo19 Radburn today features one grade-separated crossing in which a pedestrian pathtunnels under Howard Avenue (Figure 30)the road which separates its ldquoArdquo and ldquoBrdquo su-perblocks Stein cites Olmstedrsquos Central Parkin Manhattan (through which he habituallystrolled while living in New York City) as theinspiration for this feature There was also for-merly a wooden pedestrian bridge leading tothe south over Fair Lawn Avenue since demol-ished These crossings were intended for useby anyone but their essential purpose was forthe safe passage of Radburn children walkingor riding bikes to school20 The ldquopartialrdquo Radburn legacy can be dis-cerned in a great variety of subsequently devel-oped housing projects which link the backyards of residences by means of accessiblepedestrian open space See for instance theauthorrsquos 1999 ldquoOpen-back Neighborhoodsrdquo 21 This article provides a historical review ofthe development and transformation of Wild-wood Parkrsquos landscapes over fifty years Pur-suant to the historical study the authorconducted extended field work at theneighborhood which included observationmapping resident ldquofocused interviewsrdquo and afollow-up survey the interview and surveyquestions explored the residentsrsquo perceptionsof neighborhood landscape issues and theirhabitual uses of the differentiated neighbor-hood landscapes over the period of theirtenure as residents The authorrsquos generaliza-tions which appear in this paper concerninglandscape issues conditions residentvisitorbehaviors attitudes etc are drawn primarilyfrom information gathered during extendedvisits to Wildwood Park in two different sea-sons but also have basis in similar studies con-ducted at Wildwood Park in the 1970s (see ref-erences for Mubanga Toews andNelsonCrockett research reports)22 During a recent visit to Radburn the au-thor was given a guided tour through the com-munity as the guest of the manager of the Rad-burn Association The tour encompassed thelanes the open space network and several res-identsrsquo properties and homes On other occa-sions during this visit the author made generalbehavioral observations conducted selectivefield mapping of front- and back-yard land-scapes and had the opportunity to conductextended interviews with the manager and sev-eral residents or resident families As with theWildwood Park study (see previous note) theinterview questions explored the residentsrsquoperceptions of neighborhood landscape issuesand their habitual uses of the differentiatedneighborhood landscapes over the period of

their tenure as residents The authorrsquos general-izations about landscape issues conditionsresidentvisitor behaviors attitudes etc aredrawn primarily from information gatheredduring this visit23 The CMHC (Canadian Mortgage HousingCorporation) served the similar function ofguaranteeing mortgages for veterans as didthe VA (Veterans Administration) and theFHA (Federal Housing Administration) in theU S24 Hubert Bird is reputed to have first be-come aware of Radburn when he observed itfrom an airplane window shortly after take-offfrom New York City in the 1930s This possiblyapocryphal story is recounted in both theReimer and NelsonCrockett Wildwood Parkreferences25 On this point the CHA reviewers notedldquoWhereas this type [a hammerheads cul-de-sactermination] does result in a slight savings ofpavement when one considers that themilkman the bread man the fire trucks snowplows as well as the individuals living in thehouses will enter these cul-de-sacs it becomesobvious that an easy method of turningaround is necessaryrdquo (Nelson and Crockettp 41)

26 Radburn cul-de-sac lanes and WildwoodPark looped-lanes vary in size (and align-ment) but on average the Radburn laneserves about 18 homes while on average theWildwood Park lane serves 29 Consideringonly the lane and its lots (and not taking intoaccount the common open space) density for


Figure 28 The ldquolive-endrdquo cul-de-sac Atypically narrow walkway threadingbetween homes located on thehammerhead terminus of a Radburnlanemdasha walkway which connects with theinter-lane pathways which in turnconnect with Radburnrsquos central interioropen space (Photo by author)

Figure 29 Cautleyrsquos hedges define theRadburn inter-lane pathways aspedestrian conduits when the hedges areat or above eye-level as is often the casethe front yards are hidden from publicview (Photo by author)

Figure 30 Radburnrsquos famous pedestrianunderpass a tunnel under HowardAvenue which connects ldquoArdquo park and ldquoBrdquopark This design feature was directlyinspired by Olmstedrsquos similar grade-separated crossings in ManhattanrsquosCentral Park and Steinrsquos tunnel inspiredsimilar pedestrian-friendly constructionsin 1960s American New Towns such asColumbia Maryland (Photo by author)

a typical Radburn lane is approximately 85dwelling units per acre and for WildwoodPark a similar measure yields a little over 5dwelling units per acre However consideringthat Wildwood Park front yards unlike Rad-burn front yards are effectively part of theldquoparkrdquo because of the absence of private-property screening one could subtract Wild-wood Park front yards from the equation in or-der to produce a more comparable pair offigures this adjustment yields an increaseddensity figure of 67 dwelling units per acre fora typical Wildwood Park section The fact thatRadburnrsquos density figure remains greater fol-lowing this adjustment largely reflects the factthat Radburnrsquos lots are narrower and Radburnincludes some attached homes while Wild-wood Park does not27 Meyer coined the term ldquofigured groundrdquo tocall attention to her point that landscape as ex-periencedmdasha complex and protean environ-mentmdashcannot be adequately describedthrough static plan-view illustration (see fol-lowing note for elaboration) 28 Meyer uses the example of Radburn(among others) to highlight the limitations in-herent in the abstraction of a ldquofigure-groundrdquodiagram which represents landscape as a col-lection of solids (buildings and other largestructures) and voids (non-buildings) She ar-gues that this type of diagram is an oversimpli-fication of the richness and complexities ofthe ldquofigured groundrdquo that actually constituteslandscape and cautions that although it is of-ten illustrated in texts as a figure-ground dia-gram Radburn cannot be adequately repre-sented or understood by means of suchabstractions Meyer also notes that planningtexts in their failure to either represent or ac-knowledge Radburnrsquos figured ground rou-tinely ignore landscape architect Cautleyrsquos im-portant contribution to the design andstructure of the Radburn landscape29 Information gathered in resident inter-views30 One resident couple noted that Radburnfront yards can be ldquosocialrdquo by choicemdashif resi-dents choose to engage the park or connect-ing pathways they construct outdoor front-yard seating areas which allow easy interactionby way of visual and proximal linkage to themIn their own case (their home is on a hammer-head and thereby abuts the park directly)their patio is situated close to the parkrsquos walk-way and the husband will sit facing the parkwhen he is willing to interact with passers-bybut will turn his back to the outside when hewants to be left alone31 The Radburn Associationrsquos current man-ager (who has been a resident of Radburnsince the early 1970s) has general responsibil-ity for among many other things mainte-nance of neighborhood standards respectingthe landscape interface between front yardsand the interior park-like open space Shenoted to this author that there is little concernfor privatization screening along the pathwayswhich separate adjoining cul-de-sacs becausethese paths are considered to be merely pedes-trian conduits leading from the perimeterstreets into the parkmdashand thus not really partof the park itself The park itself however isperceived as a central community resource

and the maintenance of its visual relationshipto the homes which directly surround it is aparamount concern for the community atlarge Because of this she occasionally finds itnecessary to advise park-abutting residents tolimit or control fences and vegetative screen-ing along their properties If necessary shecan cite the appropriate sections of ldquoThe Rad-burn Association Guidelines for ArchitecturalControlrdquo Section 911 limits fence heights ldquoad-jacent to walkways paths streets and propertylinesrdquo to thirty-six inches (p 24) section 99provides that ldquoAll hedges and shrubs shall bekept pruned and trimmed as seasonal growthoccursrdquo and that ldquotrees and shrubs shall be ofa type which upon maturity shall be of a sizecompatible with their location ldquo (pp 26ndash27)32 The first generation of Wildwood Park resi-dents were a demographically homogeneousgroupmdashnearly all were married couples withyoung children and many (but not all) of thehusbands were veterans who had recently re-turned from the war Relatively few of thesefamilies owned automobiles in the late 1940sand 1950s and so the pedestrian park tendedto serve a more important social and connec-tive role than it did in later years 33 Wildwood Park zoning bylaw 1800 asamended September 20 198434 In the 1950s after observing the behaviorpatterns which had developed in Radburnover more than two decades Stein noted thatldquoThe playgrounds the central greens and theswimming pools in summer are the favoriterecreation places for Radburn children Butthe paved lanes are also used for playing Ihave studied the reasons for this so that in thefuture we might keep children and autos apartto an even greater degree We will never do socompletely nor do I think we should attemptto The spirit of adventure should not be extin-guishedrdquo (Stein 1956 p 52)35 Contemporary CCRs (codes covenantsand restrictions) which can be quite detailedand are often rigidly enforced serve well to il-lustrate how homeowners value conformityand uniformity within the front-stage commu-nity landscape of the suburban street This ispartly an economic impulsemdashadherence tostrict rules is seen as a means to maintain prop-erty valuesmdashbut it is a cultural impulse as wellCCRs reinforce community identity by limitingfreedom in the public realm of the street butnote that CCRs rarely concern the ldquoinformalrdquobackstage landscape of the residential backyardsmdashthus backyards in such neighborhoodsreflect a much more libertarian character thanthe scrupulously controlled fronts36 This arrivaldeparture incidental social dy-namic was reported on by several intervieweesand it mirrors similar activities characteristicof neighborhoods served by back-alleys Seethe authorrsquos ldquoBack-alleys as Community Land-scaperdquo for evidence of this in both historic andcontemporary alley-based neighborhoods37 Figures 5 and 25 illustrate the lane-accessand laneside parking dilemma for lots locatedon the outside corners at the bends in Wild-

wood Park lanes Inequities in lane-frontagewidth lead to a variety of problems whichcould be addressed in future developmentswith a reconsideration of lane alignment38 Back-alleys are typically public right-of-waylike streets and thus in theory they are acces-sible to anyone in practice however back-alleys take on a semi-private status because oftheir intimate relationship with the informallandscape of the backyards which the alleyserves39 When the author first visited WildwoodPark and began to walk around alone in itslanes he was quickly noticed by a residentcouple who were having tea on their backyardpatio (Figure 31) and in a very neighborlymanner asked how they could be of assistanceto him This couple who as it happened laterplayed host to the author during his three-daystay at Wildwood Park related in a subsequentconversation that their interest in the sightsee-ing author (as with other unfamiliar individu-als occasionally observed in the lanes) wasmeant to be both hospitable and cautionary 40 The quality of this spirit of acceptingnesswas tested in the late 1980s when the commu-nity suddenly became home to a large influxof immigrant families who had been relocatedto live in the two Radburn apartment blocks(now known as ldquoEldorado Villagerdquo) from theformer Soviet Union From anecdotal evi-dence gathered in a number of resident inter-views there were significant cultural diconti-nuities immediately made evident as the

Martin 173

Figure 31 A view into the backyard andto the lane just beyond from a WildwoodPark kitchen door The patio seen herewas the site of the authorrsquos initialincidental contact with a Wildwood Parkfamily (Photo by author)

newcomers began to make social and recre-ational use of the common spaces but insteadof the ghettoization which might be expectedto be inevitable in such a situation the newresidents soon became well-integrated withRadburn community life Many of the ldquonativerdquoRadburnites took an active role in promotingvarious community social outreach activitiesand volunteered for languageliteracy pro-gram instruction all of which had the effect ofovercoming the potential for division or mis-trust between cultural factions To the visitorwalking around in Radburn today the pres-ence of the Russian neighbors is very much inevidence but they seem as much a part of theneighborhood as their American-born neigh-bors41 Even so Radburn is not the most upscaleof neighborhoods in the immediate regionThat designation belongs to Ridgewood anearby neighborhood with significantly largerhomes (of greater average market value)larger lots and an entirely conventional streetnetwork42 While Radburnites are free to convert theirgarage interiors to non-garage use they arestill required by neighborhood covenant toprovide for out-of-sight storage of yard clutterFor this reason a popular remodeling com-promise at Radburn is a garage conversionwhich leaves the rearmost four feet of space asa shallow storage room (for bicycles grillsplastic swimming pools etc) still accessiblefrom the driveway through the garage doorand divided from the remainder of the con-verted garage room by an interior wall43 One of the most attractive attributes of theWildwood Park home in 1948 was its relativelylow cost even for a starter home Through theincorporation of a limited street system (origi-nally the lanes were not paved with asphalt)and the use of house prefabrication tech-niques Bird was able to market his homes at aprice about 15ndash20 below comparable homesin more traditional developments (Nelson andCrockett 1984)44 The European ldquowoonerfrdquo (ldquoliving streetrdquo)model offers another means to address the au-tomobilepedestrian dilemma but the con-cept has not caught on in North America per-haps due to the size and number of cars whichtypically inhabit American neighborhoodsThis urban residential design approach inwhich streets are contorted or intentionallyobstructed as a ldquotraffic-calmingrdquo strategyseems to have met with the greatest accept-ance in urban environments which featuremuch smaller numbers of much smaller cars(as in the Netherlands Denmark and Japan)45 Audirac and Shermyen relate that ldquo inSeaside all houses have front porches toprovide a transition between the private andpublic realms But many residents had allowedshrubs to grow and screen their porches fromthe street to obtain more privacy A few resi-dents also requested rear porches which wouldallow them to spend time overlooking theirprivate backyards rather than the street infront of the house A similar desire for privacyand security along with a desire to protectproperty values led Seaside residents to postsigns on streets discouraging vehicles frompassing throughrdquo

46 In the late 1940s only about one WildwoodPark family in ten owned an automobile orthree per section By 1960 the average was ap-proximately one car per household or thirtyper section by the late 1990s this average wasover two cars per household or sixty+ per sec-tionmdasha twenty-fold increase of car ownershipand requisite storage capacity over a span offifty years The number and size of lane-accessed garages has of course grown accord-ingly which has in turn transformed the char-acter of the Wildwood Park lane-scape(Approximations of car ownership figuresbased on authorrsquos observations as well as anec-dotal information provided by long-term Wild-wood Park residents during interviews)47 There are only two instances of detachedgarages in all of Radburn typically the Rad-burn house incorporates a single-car garagethe door for which faces the lane

ReferencesAudirac Ivonne and Anne H Shermyen

1994 ldquoAn Evaluation of NeotraditionalDesignrsquos Social Prescription Postmod-ern Placebo or Remedy for SuburbanMalaiserdquo Journal of Planning Educationand Research 13(3) 161ndash173

Bacher John C 1993 Keeping to the Market-place The Evolution of Canadian HousingPolicy Kingston and Montreal McGill-Queens University Press

Bayne H A Town Planning Consultants1945 (amended 1984) Wildwood ParkTown Planning Scheme (including zoningbylaws) Winnipeg Municipality of FortGarry

Birch Eugenie Ladner 1980 ldquoRadburn andthe American Planning Movement ThePersistence of an Ideardquo Journal of theAmerican Planning Association 46(4)424ndash439

Calthorpe Peter 1993 The Next American Me-tropolis New York Princeton Architec-tural Press

Childs Mark 1996 ldquoThe Living Endrdquo Plan-ning 62(5) 14ndash15

Christensen Carol A 1986 The American Gar-den City and the New Towns MovementAnn Arbor UMI Research Press

Corbett Michael N 1981 A Better Place to LiveNew Designs for Tomorrowrsquos CommunitiesEmmaus PA Rodale Press

Corbett Judy and Michael Corbett 2000 De-signing Sustainable Communities Learn-ing from Village Homes WashingtonDC Island Press

Doucet Michael and John Weaver 1991 Hous-ing the North American City Montrealand Kingston McGill-Queenrsquos Univer-sity Press

Duany Andres Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk andJeff Speck 2000 Suburban Nation The

Rise of Sprawl and the Decline of the Ameri-can Dream New York North Point Press

Eubank-Ahrens Brenda 1991 ldquoA Closer Lookat the Users of Woonervenrdquo PublicStreets for Public Use New York Colum-bia University Press

Filler Martin 1982 ldquoPlanning for a BetterWorld The Lasting Legacy of ClarenceSteinrdquo Architectural Record 170(10) 122ndash127

Fulton William 1997 The New Urbanism Hopeor Hype for American Communities Cam-bridge MA The Lincoln Institute ofLand Policy

Girling Cynthia and Kenneth Helphand1994 Yard Street Park New York JohnWiley and Sons

Goffman Erving 1959 The Presentation of Selfin Everyday Life New York AnchorBooks

mdashmdashmdash 1991 ldquoDramaturgical Theoryrdquo TheStructure of Sociological Theory (fifth edi-tion) Belmont CA Wadsworth Pub-lishing Co

Harris Richard and Peter J Larkham (eds)1999 Changing Suburbs FoundationForm and Function London E and FNSpon

Hoke John Ray Jr (editor-in-chief) 2000Ramsey and Sleeper Architectural GraphicStandards (Tenth Edition) New YorkJohn Wiley and Sons Inc

Howard Ebenezer 1902 Garden Cities of To-morrow (being the second edition of ldquoTomor-row A Peaceful Path to Real Reformrdquo)London S Sonnenschein and Co Ltd

Hudson Robert B 1934 Radburn A Plan ofLiving New York American Associationfor Adult Education

Jacobs Jane 1961 The Death and Life of GreatAmerican Cities New York VantageBooks

Jarvis Frederick D 1993 Site Planning andCommunity Design for Great NeighborhoodsWashington DC Home Builder Press

Katz Peter 1994 The New Urbanism Toward anArchitecture of Community New York Mc-Graw-Hill Inc

Krieger Alex 1991 ldquoSince and Before Sea-siderdquo Towns and Town-Making PrinciplesNew York Rizzoli

Leccese Michael and Kathleen McCormick(eds) 1999 Charter of the New UrbanismNew York McGraw-Hill

Lynch Kevin 1960 The Image of the City Cam-bridge MA Technology Press

mdashmdashmdash 1990 Wasting Away San FranciscoSierra Club Books

Martin Michael David 1996 ldquoBack-Alley asNeighborhood Landscaperdquo LandscapeJournal 15(2) 138ndash153

mdashmdashmdash 1999 ldquoOpen-back NeighborhoodsThree case Studiesrdquo Landscape Journal(forthcoming)

mdashmdashmdash 2001 ldquoThe Landscapes of WinnipegrsquosWildwood Parkrdquo Urban History Re-viewRevue drsquohistoire urbaine

Meyer Elizabeth K 1997 ldquoThe ExpandedField of Landscape Architecturerdquo Eco-logical Design and Planning New YorkJohn Wiley and Sons

Miron John R 1988 Housing in PostwarCanada Demographic Change Household


Formation and Housing DemandKingston and Montreal McGill-QueensUniversity Press

Mubanga Pascal 1974 Wildwood Park Study(unpublished research report Univer-sity of Manitoba)

Nelson Carl R Jr and Donald G Crockett1984 Wildwood Park Study (unpublishedresearch report copy Carl R Nelson Jr)

Newman Oscar 1969 Physical Parameters of De-fensible Space Past Experiences and Hypo-theses New York Columbia UniversityPress

Parsons Kermit Carlyle (ed) 1998 The Writ-ings of Clarence S Stein Baltimore TheJohns Hopkins University Press

Radburn Association Board of Trustees 1997ldquoThe Radburn Association Guidelinesof Architectural Controlrdquo Radburn Bul-letin no 2766 Fair Lawn New JerseyThe Radburn Association

Rapaport Amos 1969 House Form and CultureNew York Prentice-Hall

Reimer Mavis 1989 Wildwood Park through theYears Winnipeg Wildwood HistoryBook Committee

Richert Evan D AICP and Mark B Lapping(guest editors) ldquoEbenezer Howard andthe Garden Cityrdquo Journal of the AmericanPlanning Association 64(2) 125ndash132

Schaffer Daniel 1982 Garden Cities for Amer-ica The Radburn Experience Philadel-phia Temple University Press

Schmitz Adrienne and Lloyd W Bookout(eds) 1998 Trends and Innovations inMaster-Planned Communities WashingtonDC The Urban Land Institute

Smith Lawrence Berk 1974 The Postwar Cana-dian Housing and Residential MortgageMarkets and the Role of GovernmentToronto University of Toronto Press

Stellhorn Paul A (ed) 1978 Planned andUtopian Experiments Four New JerseyTowns Trenton New Jersey HistoricalCommission

Tennenbaum Robert (ed) 1996 Creating aNew City Columbia Maryland Colum-bia MD Perry Publishing

Toews Siegfried 1974 A Tribute to WildwoodPark (unpublished research reportUniversity of Manitoba)

Unwin Sir Raymond 1932 Town Planning inPractice An Introduction to the Art of De-signing Cities and Suburbs LondonErnest Benn

The U S Resettlement Association 1936Greenbelt Towns A Demonstration in Sub-urban Planning Washington D C

Further ReadingAppleyard Donald 1981 Livable Streets Berke-

ley University of California Press Brower Sidney 1998 Good Neighborhoods A

Study of In-town and Suburban ResidentialEnvironments Westport CT PraegerPublishers

Brownstone Meyer and T J Plunkett 1983Metropolitan Winnipeg Politics and Re-form of Local Government Berkeley Uni-versity of California Press

Cooper Marcus Clare and Wendy Sarkissian1986 Housing as if People MatteredBerkeley University of California Press

Francis Mark Lisa Cashdan and Lynn Paxson1984 Community Open Spaces GreeningNeighborhoods Through Community Actionand Land Conservation WashingtonDC Island Press

Gehl Jan 1987 Life Between Buildings NewYork Van Nostrand Reinhold

Hester Randolph T Jr 1975 NeighborhoodSpace Stroudsburg PA DowdenHutchinson amp Ross Inc

Lehrer Ute Angelika and Richard Milgrom1996 ldquoNew (Sub)urbanism Counter-sprawl or Repackaging the ProductrdquoCapitalism Nature Socialism 7(2) 49ndash64

Southworth Michael and Eran Ben-Joseph1997 Streets and the Shaping of Towns andCities New York McGraw-Hill

Thompson F Longstreth 1923 Site Planningin Practice An Investigation of the Prin-ciples of Housing Estate Development Lon-don Henry Frowde amp Hodder ampStoughton

Martin 175

primary community space is funda-mentally at odds with the new urban-ist vision for livable public streetsNew urbanism has repudiated theRadburn idea

The clearest and perhaps atthis point the most widely dissemi-nated evidence of this repudiationcan be found in the recent editionsof Architectural Graphic Standards thereference ldquobiblerdquo for architects plan-ners and landscape architects Agroup identified as ldquoThe Cintas

Foundationrdquo comprised of new ur-banist pioneers Andres Duany andElizabeth Plater-Zyberk (among oth-ers) authored sections of the volumewhich identify general communityplanning typologies and principlesUnder ldquoplan typesrdquo they do providea platting diagram of a portion ofRadburn but assert that its distinc-

tive disadvantage is its ldquoconcentrationof traffic by absence of networkrdquo(Hoke 2000 p 88)mdasha criticism thatis of course balanced by the ldquotraffic-calmingrdquo benefits inherent in a streetplan which accommodates only localtraffic It is also in this particularcase an invalid criticism since aproblematic degree of ldquoconcentra-tion of trafficrdquo would occur only be-yond a certain scale of developmentor beyond a certain extent of a den-dritic street patternmdasha scale fargreater than that of the compactRadburn system of streets and lanes(a typical Radburn lane is a scant 400feet in length) What is even more re-vealing about the new urbanist pre-disposition is what is missing fromthis essential and widely respectedreference volume In the ldquoblocktypesrdquo section several block confor-mations are diagrammed but no cul-de-sac infiltrated ldquosuperblockrdquo ap-pears (Hoke 2000 p 89) And underthe ldquoopen space typerdquo heading onlyopen spaces directly bounded at leastin part by streets make their appear-ancemdashno protected Radburn-styleinterior spaces are to be found(Hoke 2000 p 89) All this is quiteconsistent with the new urbanist as-sertion that the very concept of com-munity open space is meaninglesswhen the open space is detachedfrom the very public street networkand the effective censorship of ex-amples of detached interior openspace from the featured planningtypologies demonstrates the totalityof the new urbanist dismissal of thislandscape

The new urbanist argument isthat the Radburn concept was far tooradical an example of overreachingmodernism and cultural discontinu-ity heedlessly tossing aside tradi-tional town-making principlesgrounded in centuries of urban expe-rience (Krieger 1991)11 With hisldquoTown for the Motor Agerdquo new ur-banists maintain that Stein was notadjusting to the reality of motoringin everyday life so much as he wasrunning away from the problemleaving a trail of unintended conse-quences in his wake The new urban-ists are only the latest critics to pointout that Radburn not only lacks pro-per public streetscapes but that the

Martin 157

Figure 1 Radburn as envisioned and Radburn as-built Most of the area not yet developedprior to the economic crisis of 1929 was later re-platted for more standard forms ofresidential development (Drawing by author)





















Martin 159
















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Martin 175

Returning To Radburn

Documents

Transcript of Returning To Radburn