Bernardino, Adrianne D.

Archi 4A

New Communities Movement

1. Provide the background of the movement. What is the vision?
Background
In the 1950s and 1960s, early post-World War II suburban expansion was criticized for its
ugliness, cultural conformity, social isolation, and environmental problems. From the 1950s
through the 1970s, some real–estate developers and parts of the planning profession responded
to these complaints. They proposed master-planned new communities throughout the United
States related to the new–towns programs then active in Europe. By avoiding many of the
problems of unplanned incremental growth—or sprawl—they imagined both improving urban
areas and creating a real–estate product that would sell.
While around 150 of these new communities were publicized in the 1960s and 1970s, not
all the proposed developments were built. In addition, the developments differed in character.
Some developments were relatively small—much closer to 10,000 than 100,000 in population.
While the ideal of the new community was the comprehensive new town with employment, retail,
cultural facilities, and recreational opportunities, many were more like bedroom suburbs either
in their initial concept or due to scaling back of the development after construction commenced.

Vision

The communities were planned to be phased, coordinated, socially balanced,

environmentally aware and economically efficient. Their developers wanted to create whole
communities rather than simple subdivisions.

2. Who were the notable personalities of this movement?

 Alexander Turney Stewart (Garden City, Queens)
 Alexander Bing with Architects Clarence Stein and Henry Wright ( Sunnyside Gardens)
 Clarence Perry (Neighborhood unit)
 Clarence Stein (Radburn Community)

3. What is the vision of the Proposed Garden City of New York? What were the challenges faced by
the proposal?
The vision of the Proposed Garden City of New York is to devote them to the usual
purposes for which such lands, so located, should be applied that is, open them by constructing
extensive public roads, laying out the lands in parcels for sale to actual settlers, and erecting at
various points attractive buildings and residences, so that a barren waste may speedily be covered
by a population desirable in every respect as neighbour taxpayers and as citizens.

4. What is the vision of the Sunnyside Gardens? What are the features of the Sunnyside Gardens?
Sunnyside Gardens includes one-, two-, and three-family homes, and a few apartment
buildings, all made of Hudson brick (it was inexpensive, durable, and available). Each private
 residence has a small front garden facing the street and a private garden in the rear. The rental
units in the two- and three-family houses enjoy private terraces overlooking the gardens. There
are two configurations: the courtyard condition and the mews condition; at the edges of the
community some homes simply line the street, with a common walkway running the length of
the row. Homes in the courtyard blocks enclose an inner courtyard that was designated a
common, landscaped but not used for recreation. Each homeowner actually owned, and paid
taxes on, the part of the common in the block and lot, even if it was not used. The mews houses
face a common front court and back on alleys; each mews house also has a private rear yard.

5. What is the vision of the Neighborhood Unit of the Clarence Perry? What are the principles Perry
created for his Neighborhood 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.
Core Principles of Perry's Neighbourhood Unit
 Centre the school in the neighbourhood.
 Place arterial streets along the perimeter so that they define and distinguish the the
"place" of the neighbourhood.
 Design internal streets using a hierarchy that easily distinguishes local streets from from
arterial streets.
 Restrict local shopping areas to the perimeter.
 Dedicate at least 10 percent of the neighbourhood land area to parks and open open
space.
Principles
 Size
The town is divided into self-contained units or sectors of population. This is further
divided into smaller units called neighbourhood with 2,000 to 5,000 based on the
requirement of one primary. The size of the unit is therefore limited to about 1 to 1. 5 sq
within walkable distance of 10 to 15 minutes.
 Boundaries
The unit should be bounded on all its sides by main road, enough for traffic.
 Protective Strips
These are necessary to protect the neighbourhood from traffic and to provide suitable
facilities for developing parks, playgrounds, and road widening scheme in future. These
are called Minor Green Belts.
 Internal Streets
The internal streets are designed to ensure safety to the people school going children in
particular. The internal streets should circulate throughout the unit with easy shops and
community centres.
 Layout of buildings
To encourage neighbourhood relation and secure social stability and balance.
The houses to suit the different income group should be provided single family houses,
double family houses, cottages , flats, etc.
 Shopping Centres
 Each shop should be located on the circumference of the unit, preferably at traffic
junctions and adjacent to the neighbourhood units.
 Community Centres
Each community will have its centre with social, cultural and recreational amenities.
 Facilities
All public facilities required for the family for their comfort and convenience should be
within easy reach. These include the primary school, temple, club, retail shop, sport .
These should be located within 1km in the central place so as to nucleus to develop social
life of the unit.

6. What is the vision of Clarence Stein for the Radburn community? What are the design features of
this concept?
The vision for Radburn was of an integrated self-sustaining community, surrounded by
greenbelts, specialized automotive thoroughfares (main linking roads, serviced lanes for direct
access to buildings, and express highways), and a complete separation of auto and pedestrian
traffic. These thoroughfares were called superblocks. This was because the block is very large with
a very large road surrounding the houses within.
Stein knew that the community could not survive without a road system but he also didn't
want the roads dominating the land. Instead, the superblocks make the main focus on the yards
and the gardens surrounding the buildings. This grand vision was informed by the lessons of
Sunnyside, and by the comparable city-planning work of Ernst May in Germany (researched by a
young Catherine Bauer), but the experiment was never completed because of the economic
pressures of the Depression.
Due to the Depression and different land issues, Radburn was not able to become a
Garden City, but it was still impressionable because the superblock was a very successful idea that
has been repeated numerous times. The Separate pedestrian paths run through the green spaces
between the culs-de-sac and through the central green spine

7. What are the failures of the Radburn Model?

 Laneways being used as common entries and exits to the houses, helping to isolate
communities and to encourage crime.
 The main traffic routes doesn’t work in practice, and that they still accept the older
pattern of residential units threaded by traffic routes (suitably safeguarded) rather than
by-passed.

8. What are the impacts of the Radburn Model in contemporary community planning?

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

Radburn has had a significant impact on planning theory and vision in the twentieth
century. Not only did it act as an exemplar of the profession's principles but also its design became
a steady resource for practitioners. Furthermore, in every generation since the beginning of the
 movement, planners-always affected by the economic, social, and political environment of their
times-have found answers to specific contemporary problems in Radburn.

Sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunnyside,_Queens

https://www.slideshare.net/ayaz60/clarence-perry

file:///F:/289589483-New-Communities-Movement.pdf

https://www.jstor.org/stable/43619908?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents

https://repository.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1030&context=cplan_papers