Radburn, New Jersey
Encyclopedia
Radburn is an unincorporated planned community
Planned community
A planned community, or planned city, is any community that was carefully planned from its inception and is typically constructed in a previously undeveloped area. This contrasts with settlements that evolve in a more ad hoc fashion. Land use conflicts are less frequent in planned communities since...

 located within Fair Lawn
Fair Lawn, New Jersey
Fair Lawn is a borough in Bergen County, New Jersey, United States and a suburban municipality in the New York City Metropolitan Area. As of the 2010 United States Census, the borough's population was 32,457. Fair Lawn was incorporated as a borough by an Act of the New Jersey Legislature on March...

, in Bergen County
Bergen County, New Jersey
Bergen County is the most populous county of the state of New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, its population was 905,116. The county is part of the New York City Metropolitan Area. Its county seat is Hackensack...

, New Jersey
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...

, United States.

Radburn was founded in 1929 as "a town for the motor age". Its planners, Clarence Stein
Clarence Stein
Clarence Samuel Stein was an American urban planner, architect, and writer, a major proponent of the "Garden City" movement in the United States.- Biography :...

 and Henry Wright, and its landscape architect
Landscape architect
A landscape architect is a person involved in the planning, design and sometimes direction of a landscape, garden, or distinct space. The professional practice is known as landscape architecture....

 Marjorie Sewell Cautley
Marjorie Sewell Cautley
Marjorie Sewell Cautley was an American landscape architect who played an influential yet often overlooked part in the conception and development of some early, visionary twentieth-century American communities. Her father was William Elbridge Sewell, who later became Governor of Guam...

 aimed to incorporate modern planning principles, which were then being introduced into England's Garden Cities
Garden city movement
The garden city movement is a method of urban planning that was initiated in 1898 by Sir Ebenezer Howard in the United Kingdom. Garden cities were intended to be planned, self-contained communities surrounded by "greenbelts" , containing proportionate areas of residences, industry and...

, following ideas advocated by urban planner
Urban planner
An urban planner or city planner is a professional who works in the field of urban planning/land use planning for the purpose of optimizing the effectiveness of a community's land use and infrastructure. They formulate plans for the development and management of urban and suburban areas, typically...

s Ebenezer Howard
Ebenezer Howard
Sir Ebenezer Howard is known for his publication Garden Cities of To-morrow , the description of a utopian city in which people live harmoniously together with nature. The publication resulted in the founding of the garden city movement, that realized several Garden Cities in Great Britain at the...

, Sir Patrick Geddes
Patrick Geddes
Sir Patrick Geddes was a Scottish biologist, sociologist, philanthropist and pioneering town planner. He is known for his innovative thinking in the fields of urban planning and education....

 and Clarence Perry
Clarence Perry
Clarence Arthur Perry was an American planner, sociologist, author, and educator. He was born in Truxton, New York. He later worked in the New York City planning department where he became a strong advocate of the Neighborhood unit...

. Perry’s Neighbourhood unit
Neighbourhood unit
The concept of the neighbourhood unit, crystallised from the prevailing social and intellectual attitudes of the early 1900s by Clarence Perry, is an early diagrammatic planning model for residential development in metropolitan areas...

 concept was well-formulated by the time Radburn was planned, being informed by Forest Hills Gardens (1909-1914), a garden-city development of the Russell Sage Foundation
Russell Sage Foundation
The Russell Sage Foundation is the principal American foundation devoted exclusively to research in the social sciences. Founded in 1907 and headquartered in New York City, the foundation is a research center, a funding source for studies by scholars at other institutions, and a key member of the...

.

Radburn was explicitly designed to separate traffic by mode, with a pedestrian
Pedestrian
A pedestrian is a person traveling on foot, whether walking or running. In some communities, those traveling using roller skates or skateboards are also considered to be pedestrians. In modern times, the term mostly refers to someone walking on a road or footpath, but this was not the case...

 path system that does not cross any major roads at grade. Radburn introduced the largely residential "superblock" and is credited with incorporating some of the earliest culs-de-sac
Cul-de-sac
A cul-de-sac is a word of French origin referring to a dead end, close, no through road or court meaning dead-end street with only one inlet/outlet...

 in the United States.

Statistics

There are approximately 3,100 people in 670 families residing in Radburn. They live in 469 single family homes, 48 townhouse
Townhouse
A townhouse is the term historically used in the United Kingdom, Ireland and in many other countries to describe a residence of a peer or member of the aristocracy in the capital or major city. Most such figures owned one or more country houses in which they lived for much of the year...

s, 30 two-family houses
Semi-detached
Semi-detached housing consists of pairs of houses built side by side as units sharing a party wall and usually in such a way that each house's layout is a mirror image of its twin...

 and a 93-unit apartment
Apartment
An apartment or flat is a self-contained housing unit that occupies only part of a building...

 complex.

Radburn's 149 acre (0.60298214 km²) include 23 acres (93,077.8 m²) of interior parks, four tennis courts, three hardball
Baseball
Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each. The aim is to score runs by hitting a thrown ball with a bat and touching a series of four bases arranged at the corners of a ninety-foot diamond...

 fields, two softball
Baseball
Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each. The aim is to score runs by hitting a thrown ball with a bat and touching a series of four bases arranged at the corners of a ninety-foot diamond...

 fields, two swimming pools and an archery
Archery
Archery is the art, practice, or skill of propelling arrows with the use of a bow, from Latin arcus. Archery has historically been used for hunting and combat; in modern times, however, its main use is that of a recreational activity...

 plaza. Young children and their parents can make use of two toddler playgroup areas, two playgrounds and a toddler bathing pool.

There is also a community center which houses administrative offices, library, gymnasium, clubroom, pre-school and maintenance shops.

For census
United States Census
The United States Census is a decennial census mandated by the United States Constitution. The population is enumerated every 10 years and the results are used to allocate Congressional seats , electoral votes, and government program funding. The United States Census Bureau The United States Census...

 purposes, Radburn is mostly a subset of Census Tract
Census tract
A census tract, census area, or census district is a geographic region defined for the purpose of taking a census. Usually these coincide with the limits of cities, towns or other administrative areas and several tracts commonly exist within a county...

 171 in Bergen County, New Jersey
Bergen County, New Jersey
Bergen County is the most populous county of the state of New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, its population was 905,116. The county is part of the New York City Metropolitan Area. Its county seat is Hackensack...

.

A community within a community

The Radburn Community enjoys much autonomy within the Borough of Fair Lawn. Pursuant to enabling laws passed in the 1920s and covenant
Restrictive covenant
A restrictive covenant is a type of real covenant, a legal obligation imposed in a deed by the seller upon the buyer of real estate to do or not to do something. Such restrictions frequently "run with the land" and are enforceable on subsequent buyers of the property...

s included in the original deed
Deed
A deed is any legal instrument in writing which passes, or affirms or confirms something which passes, an interest, right, or property and that is signed, attested, delivered, and in some jurisdictions sealed...

s for the development, the Radburn Association is a private association which is empowered to administer Radburn's common properties and to collect from the owners of properties quarterly association fees to cover the Association's maintenance and operation of communal facilities. The Association is also empowered to restrict development and decoration of Radburn properties in order to maintain a consistent "look" to the community. Use of Radburn Association facilities is limited to residents (though the parks themselves are ungated and the walkways are public property of the Borough.)

Governance

Radburn residents vote for a board of trustees to govern the Association. Nominees to six of the nine board seats are chosen by the sitting trustees. Two other seats are appointed by former trustees and not subject to the residents' vote. The ninth seat is filled by the President of the Radburn Citizens' Association ex-officio.

In November, 2006 a group of Radburn residents opposed to the current system of governance filed a lawsuit against the Radburn Association. The plaintiffs claim that Radburn's governance violates New Jersey state law and the New Jersey State Constitution
New Jersey State Constitution
The Constitution of the State of New Jersey is the basic governing document of the State of New Jersey. In addition to three British Royal Charters issued for East Jersey, West Jersey and united New Jersey while they were still colonies, the state has been governed by three constitutions...

. The residents are represented by two public interest legal organizations: the New Jersey Appleseed Public Interest Law Center and The Community Law Clinic of The Rutgers School of Law-Newark.

On April 1, 2008, the New Jersey Superior Court
New Jersey Superior Court
The Superior Court is the state court in the U.S. state of New Jersey, with state-wide trial and appellate jurisdiction. The Superior Court has three divisions: the Appellate Division is essentially an intermediate appellate court while the Law and Chancery Divisions function as trial courts...

 awarded summary judgements for both sides in the democracy lawsuit. Judge Contillo found that Radburn's governance was legal as well as its membership. The Court ordered the Association to comply with the law by providing full financial disclosure to residents and amending its bylaws to support open trustee meetings four times each year.

Respected New Jersey Constitutional expert Frank Askin of the Rutgers University School of Law at Newark, and his Clinic on Constitutional Law, have now joined the plaintiffs' pro bono legal team for the appeals process, intending to affirm through the courts that the PREDFDA statute guarantees free elections in planned community government

On June 17, 2010, the Moore V Radburn litigation was finally put to rest by the NJ Supreme Court. The petition for certification filed by the 16 litigants was denied.

Facilities

The Radburn School, an elementary school
Primary education
A primary school is an institution in which children receive the first stage of compulsory education known as primary or elementary education. Primary school is the preferred term in the United Kingdom and many Commonwealth Nations, and in most publications of the United Nations Educational,...

 located on the edge of the "B" park, is operated by the Fair Lawn Public Schools
Fair Lawn Public Schools
The Fair Lawn Public Schools are a comprehensive community public school district serving students in kindergarten through twelfth grade from Fair Lawn in Bergen County, New Jersey, United States....

. While many of its students are Radburn residents, it serves a larger district. The school, built in 1929, was designed by the architecture firm of Guilbert & Betelle. The building was expanded in 1955 and again in 2005.

Several prominent Fair Lawn businesses exist in Radburn's business district, which is at the intersection of Fair Lawn Avenue and Plaza Road, two important arteries in Fair Lawn. Many of these businesses are within the Radburn Plaza (clock tower) building, a signature landmark of Radburn and Fair Lawn itself. (The building suffered a severe fire several years ago and was recently restored in its prior image.) Nearby stands the Old Dutch House, a tavern
Tavern
A tavern is a place of business where people gather to drink alcoholic beverages and be served food, and in some cases, where travelers receive lodging....

 built during the time of Dutch colonization of the Americas
Dutch colonization of the Americas
Dutch trading posts and plantations in the Americas precede the much wider known colonization activities of the Dutch in Asia. Whereas the first Dutch fort in Asia was built in 1600 , the first forts and settlements on the Essequibo river in Guyana and on the Amazon date from the 1590s...

.

Facing the Plaza Building is the Radburn railroad station, built by the Radburn developers along the Erie Railroad
Erie Railroad
The Erie Railroad was a railroad that operated in New York State, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, originally connecting New York City with Lake Erie...

 line (later Conrail) and listed on the National Register of Historic Places
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...

. Passenger service operates there today on the New Jersey Transit
New Jersey Transit
The New Jersey Transit Corporation is a statewide public transportation system serving the United States state of New Jersey, and New York, Orange, and Rockland counties in New York State...

 Bergen County Line
Bergen County Line
The Bergen County Line is a commuter rail line and service owned and operated by New Jersey Transit in the U.S. state of New Jersey. The line loops off the Main Line between the Meadowlands and Glen Rock, with trains continuing in either direction along the Main Line...

.

Radburn as a model

The same design choices seen as impediments to a lifestyle centered around the automobile led to perceptions that Radburn can serve as precedent both for New Pedestrianism and for the car-free movement
Car-free movement
The car-free movement is a broad, informal, emergent network of individuals and organizations including social activists, urban planners and others brought together by a shared belief that cars are too dominant in most modern cities...

.

The impact of Radburn's urban form on energy consumption for short local trips was considered in a 1970 study by John Lansing of the University of Michigan
University of Michigan
The University of Michigan is a public research university located in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the United States. It is the state's oldest university and the flagship campus of the University of Michigan...

. The study found Radburn's design to have important implications for energy conservation, recording that 47% of its residents shopped for groceries on foot, while comparable figures were 23% for Reston, Virginia
Reston, Virginia
Reston is a census-designated place in Fairfax County, Virginia, United States, within the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. The population was 58,404, at the 2010 Census and 56,407 at the 2000 census...

 (another Radburn-type development, but more car oriented) and only 8% for a nearby unplanned community. Other findings, such as low figures for weekend trips and low average numbers of miles traveled by car per resident, bore out this claim. (See reference, below.)

In Canada, the Radburn concept was used in Winnipeg, Manitoba
Winnipeg
Winnipeg is the capital and largest city of Manitoba, Canada, and is the primary municipality of the Winnipeg Capital Region, with more than half of Manitoba's population. It is located near the longitudinal centre of North America, at the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine Rivers .The name...

 in the late 1940s and early 1950s in three communities: Wildwood Park
Wildwood Park, Winnipeg
Wildwood Park is a suburban community in Winnipeg that has a central green space and no front roads , with communal walkways, playgrounds and parks. Nearly all of the original houses are based on five variations of three basic designs, pre-fabricated in one section of the site...

 in Fort Garry, consisting of ten bays (loop streets), Norwood Flats in St. Boniface, consisting of four bays, and Gaboury Place, a single bay in St. Boniface – totalling several hundred single family houses, all facing sidewalks and green spaces and backing onto short bays. Today, they are considered to be desirable middle to upper-middle class Winnipeg neighbourhoods to reside in. Clarence Stein incorporated Radburn design principles into the plan of Alcan company town Kitimat, British Columbia
Kitimat, British Columbia
Kitimat is a coastal city in northwestern British Columbia, in the Regional District of Kitimat-Stikine. The Kitimat Valley, which includes the adjacent community of Terrace, is the most populous urban district in Northwest British Columbia...

 in the 1950s. The developers of Varsity Village and Braeside, subdivisions in Calgary, Alberta
Calgary
Calgary is a city in the Province of Alberta, Canada. It is located in the south of the province, in an area of foothills and prairie, approximately east of the front ranges of the Canadian Rockies...

 used the Radburn model in the late 1960s.

In Australia, the Radburn model was used in the planning of some Canberra, Australia
Canberra
Canberra is the capital city of Australia. With a population of over 345,000, it is Australia's largest inland city and the eighth-largest city overall. The city is located at the northern end of the Australian Capital Territory , south-west of Sydney, and north-east of Melbourne...

 suburbs developed in the 1960s, in particular Charnwood
Charnwood, Australian Capital Territory
Charnwood is a suburb in the Belconnen district of Canberra in the Australian Capital Territory.-Design:Charnwood's design was based on the Radburn town planning principle. Under this design, houses were to face common parkland, with the suburb's streets servicing garages situated at the rear of...

, Curtin
Curtin, Australian Capital Territory
Curtin is a suburb in the Canberra, Australia district of Woden. The postcode is 2605.It is next to the suburbs of Yarralumla, Deakin, Hughes, Lyons and Weston...

 and Garran
Garran, Australian Capital Territory
Garran is a suburb in the Woden district of Canberra in the Australian Capital Territory. Garran was named after Sir Robert Garran who made numerous contributions to the development of higher education in Canberra. The streets in Garran are named after Australian writers. On Census night 2006,...

. It was also used in the Melbourne
Melbourne
Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...

 suburb of Doncaster East in an area known as the Milgate Park Estate
Milgate Park Estate
The Milgate Park Estate is a housing estate in Doncaster East, a suburb of Melbourne, Australia. The estate comprises 40 hectares of land situated around a section of Long Valley, a gully bed that no longer carries surface water, which flows northeast and into the Mullum Mullum Creek...

.In New South Wales the then Housing Commission used the Radburn concept in numerous new estates built in the mid to late 1960s and early 1970s. Many of the medium density dwellings are being 'turned around' by lowering the road side 'rear' fence and fencing off the 'front yards that share a communal space. The lane ways have long been a problem giving local youth a place to hide and evade motorized police patrols while launching raids into homes virtually unobserved. One benefit of this plan not often mentioned is that it allows for narrower streets in the cul-de-sacs that serve the backs of the houses. This means lower costs as less bitumen, piping and cabling is needed to service the homes. In major Radburn areas such as Mt Druitt in Sydney the current Housing NSW are selling off many of their properties as they pass their economical maintenance life and begin to cost more than they are worth. Other properties, particularly the blocks of flats often housing the less affluent and educated are being demolished and new medium density developments built in their place. These are being given to the aged and (specifically migrant) families rather than the former residents, many of whom were on parole or being reintroduced to the general community after treatment for various psychiatric disorders.

In the United Kingdom, Grove Hill, one of the seven planned neighbourhoods in the Hertfordshire new town of Hemel Hempstead, was also partially designed using the Radburn model. A part of Yate
Yate
Yate is a town in South Gloucestershire, England, at the southwest extremity of the Cotswold Hills, 12 miles northeast of the city of Bristol. At the 2001 census the population was 21,789. The town of Chipping Sodbury is continuous with Yate to the east...

 in South Gloucestershire
South Gloucestershire
South Gloucestershire is a unitary district in the ceremonial county of Gloucestershire, in South West England.-History:The district was created in 1996, when the county of Avon was abolished, by the merger of former area of the districts of Kingswood and Northavon...

 in England was developed using the Radburn model. Elsewhere in England the model was employed in an extension to Letchworth Garden City. In The Meadows, Nottingham
The Meadows, Nottingham
The Meadows is an area of Nottingham, England located south of the city centre.- Overview :The area is close to the River Trent and is connected to West Bridgford in the Borough of Rushcliffe by Trent Bridge and the Wilford Suspension Bridge...

 the model has been less successful: Nottingham City Council has stated that "the problems associated with the layout of the New Meadows Radburn style layout... contribute to the anti-social behaviour and crime in the area."http://open.nottinghamcity.gov.uk/comm/download3.asp?dltype=inline&filename=36065/MeadowsPFI.doc

Many other towns in the UK contain areas or estates
Housing estate
A housing estate is a group of buildings built together as a single development. The exact form may vary from country to country. Accordingly, a housing estate is usually built by a single contractor, with only a few styles of house or building design, so they tend to be uniform in appearance...

 of Radburn-style housing; often on council estates and seen as a less-than-desirable place to live.

The Radburn model also inspired the American Radburn design for public housing
American Radburn design for public housing
The American Radburn design for public housing is a reference the civil engineering designs for public housing estates applied in the 1970s in Sydney, Australia and other places. It is typified by the backyards of homes facing the street and the fronts of homes facing each other over common yards...

.

External links



40°56′52.6"N 74°7′8.1"W
The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK