Planned Community in Fair Lawn 'A Very Different Model'

Editor's note: For a video exploring Radburn as "Town for the Motor Age," see here.

"Every architect studies Radburn," said Amy Hummerstone, herself an architect and member of the Fair Lawn Historic Preservation Commission.

Radburn is an unincorporated planned community centered on Fair Lawn Avenue and Plaza Road. It was founded in 1929 in an attempt to apply "modern planning" principles introduced in England by Ebenzer Howard and Sir Patrick Geddes to America's rapidly growing suburbs. Geddes, in particular, was an advocate of a holistic or cross-disciplinary approach to problem solving.

The problem was complex. After the World War I people started to migrate from the cities to less settled areas like Radburn. With the people came automobiles, which became tremendously popular after Wolrd War I. And with the automobiles came noise, traffic and poor air quality. At the heart of the Radburn concept was the separation of vehicular and pedestrian traffic or in more simplistic terms separating people traffic from automotive traffic.

The cornerstone of Radburn developers' Clarence Stein, Henry Wright and landscape architect Marjorie Sewell Cautley's plan was the residential "superblock."

"The superblock," according to Ronald F. Gatti, who managed the Radburn Association from 1969-89, "is a large block of land surrounded by main roads. The houses are grouped around small cul-de-sacs, each of which has an access road coming from the main roads."

"This is a very different model," said Hummerstone, "than the conventional American model where everyone has their own little mansion."

Hummerstone explained that Radburn's houses, though clustered closely together, are private and have access to green space. Most homes are oriented so their front doors face a park or a "walk street" that leads to one of the three parks.

Today 670 families live in 469 single family homes, 48 townhouses, 30 two family homes and a 93-unit apartment complex on two superblocks on either side of Fair Lawn Avenue. The heart of Radburn is the Radburn Plaza building, itself on the National Register of Historic Places. The famous clock, restored after being damaged in a fire, presides over a bustling business district.

"The houses are small. The plots are small. The houses are close together. But each one backs some green area," said Hummerstone. Of Radburn's 149 acres, 23 acres are green spaces, interior parks featuring amenities such as four tennis courts, five ball fields, two swimming pools and even an archery plaza.

Walks surround cul-de-sacs on the garden side of the houses dividing the cul-de-sacs from each other and from the central park area. Paths cross the park. A pedestrian underpass and an overpass links the superblocks with the business district centered and the Radburn Train Station.

Basically, people can use their cars to get to work (or better still the train) and when they're home leave the car parked. Another salient feature of Stein and Wright's plan was clustering different types of buildings around the superblocks. Larger buildings like the apartment complex not only provide dense living space but also shield the superblock green areas from noise and provide a modicum of privacy to the residents.

The original development was going to be much larger. The development group, City Housing Corporation, also developed the Sunnyside Gardens neighborhood of Queens. They planned a community of 25,000, extending superblocks to the Glen Rock and Paramus town lines. The Great Depression took its toll on City Housing Corporation which ended up bankrupt, ironic since the Radburn plan considered all of the costs associated with urban living and then re-allotted them for the greater good.

Another innovation with Radburn, according to Gatti, "was that the parks were secured without additional cost to the residents. The savings in expenditures for roads and public utilities at Radburn, as contrasted with the normal subdivision, paid for the parks. The Radburn type of plan requires less area of street to secure the same amount of frontage. In addition, for direct access to most houses, it used narrower roads of less expensive construction, as well as smaller utility lines. In fact, the area in streets and length of utilities is 25 percent less than in the typical American street. The savings in cost not only paid for 12-14 percent of the total area that went into internal parks, but also covered the cost of grading and landscaping the play spaces and green links connecting the central block commons."

Radburn has significant autonomy within the Borough of Fair Lawn. The Radburn Association, enabled by laws passed in the 1920s and covenants included in the original deeds, administers the common properties and collects association fees to cover the maintenance.

David Bostock is the current manager of the Radburn Association. "The area has a variety of housing stock from a 93 unit apartment complex," he said. "We have single-family homes. We have single-family attached homes. Some are fully attached. Some are only attached by the garage. We have a ten unit condominium."

The association can restrict development and approve or disapprove of decorations or additions. "The main idea is to preserve the Radburn look," said Bostock. Like many Radburn residents, Bostock's family has lived in the community for generations.

"My grandfather bought his house here in 1935," he said "My mother grew up here. My parents bought his house and I bought the house I'm living in from them. So I am raising a fourth generation here in Radburn."

Lisa Nicolaou is another multi-generation Radburn resident. She moved here from New York City when she was five.

"I remember my first morning here and I walked down the street and there was a park and a swimming pool and lots of kids. All the streets are dead ends and they back into these private parks, not truly private parks because anyone can use them, but they are sort of hard to find," she said.

"The beautiful thing about the parks," continued Nicolaou, "is kids can learn to ride bikes. Every afternoon after school, my daughter could play in the park. Something that many kids do not get to experience these days.  It's a wonderful thing to hear the sound of kids playing happily nearby."

Nicolaou, who has lived in Paris and other places, was able to purchase her current home nearly a decade ago, from a family friend. "My daughter started school here. Now she's in high school," she said.

Radburn was one of America's first green communities. A 1970 study by John Lansing of the University of Michigan found the Radburn design had significant impact on energy conservation. According to the study, 47 percent of Radburn residents shopped for groceries on foot as compared to only eight percent for a nearby-unplanned community. The study also found that Radburn residents chalked up much lower mileage on their vehicles and took fewer weekend trips.

The Radburn model has been applied globally. It is based on Henry Wright's "Six Planks for a Housing Platform." Wright's rules are:

1. Plan simply, but comprehensively. Don't stop at the individual property line. Adjust paving, sidewalks, sewers and the like to the particular needs of the property dealt with–not to a conventional pattern. Arrange buildings and grounds so as to give sunlight, air and a tolerable outlook to even the smallest and cheapest house.
2. Provide ample sites in the right places for community use: i.e., playgrounds, gardens, schools, theatres, churches, public buildings and stores.
3. Put factories and other industrial buildings where they can be used without wasteful transportation of goods or people. Cars must be parked and stored, deliveries made, waste collected–plan for such services with a minimum of danger, noise and confusion.
4. Bring private and public land into relationship and plan buildings and groups of buildings with relation to each other.
5. Develop collectively such services as will add to the comfort of the individual, at lower cost than is possible under individual operation.
6. Arrange for the occupancy of houses on a fair basis of cost and service, including the cost of what needs to be done in organizing, building and maintaining the community.

After World War Two, the Radburn plan was used to develop Winnipeg and several other sites in Canada. The developers of Varsity Village and Braeside in Calgary also used the design in the 1960s. In the 1960s, several cities in Australia, most prominently Canberra, developed similar superblock communities.

There is a decided English feel to Radburn–the lush greens, narrow walkways and Tudor and brick construction. The model was used to develop Grove Hill in Hertfordshire and part of Yate in South Gloucestershire as well Letchworth Garden City. Many other towns in the United Kingdom contain "estates" or areas of Radburn style housing. Radburn inspired communities have also appeared in Sweden, New Zealand and parts of the former Soviet Union.

The Radburn design was repatriated to Reston, Virginia and Columbia, Maryland. Some areas of Los Angeles were inspired by the plan as well.

Radburn was designated a national historic landmark in 2005. The plaque, which is mounted on one of the pedestrian tunnels, describes the "Town for the motor age" as an internationally recognized model community. "It's separation of vehicular and pedestrian traffic, spacious interior parks and superblock plan promotes social reform and an improved housing for Americans of moderate income."

Today, according to the Multiple Listing Service, the average home price in Radburn is $218,00, which is "significantly lower than prices in the neighboring New York/Long Island real estate market." While the lower than average price is also a function of the typically smaller housing units, the MLS goes on to say that "there could be many opportunities for real estate bargains in Radburn."

But perhaps architect Clarence Stein, one of the original architects said it best. "We did our best to follow Aristotle's recommendation that a city should be built to give its inhabitants security and happiness," Stein said.