When you hear the phrase \u201cutopian design,\u201d the images that arise in your mind are likely avant-garde. Perhaps you picture Buckminster Fuller\u2019s floating spheres<\/a> or, more contemporarily, the twisting glass towers and hovering drones of Telosa<\/a>, a proposed city of 5 million that would be situated in the foothills of Appalachia. You likely do not picture a suburban cul-de-sac.<\/p>\n Today, the cul-de-sac seems utterly quotidian, especially in America, evoking images of placid tract housing. When I hear this word, I am imaginatively transported to Lake Park subdivision in Pewaukee, Wisconsin, where I lived from the ages of 6 to 9. Training wheels, sidewalk chalk, the smell of grilling bratwurst \u2014 these are the Proustian sensations that flood my mind. Nostalgic, maybe, but not utopian.<\/p>\n However, the cul-de-sac, like the subdivision itself, has its origins in utopian urban planning. Some of the earliest cul-de-sacs in America were built in the 1920s in the planned community of Radburn, New Jersey, a \u201cTown for the Motor Age\u201d constructed on the spinach fields of Bergen County, approximately 15 miles (24 kilometers) from midtown Manhattan. Developed by the City Housing Corporation and partially backed by John D. Rockefeller, Radburn received tremendous media attention<\/a> when it was proposed in 1928 as one of the nation\u2019s first centrally planned “garden cities.”<\/a>\u00a0 Onlookers regarded the project as both novel and bold.<\/p>\n Aerial view of Radburn, New Jersey taken in 1935. Note how the homes are clustered close together. The narrow residential streets are cul de sacs — among the first to ever be built in America. This image was taken by the Farm Security Administration and is in the public domain as part of the Library of Congress collection<\/a>.<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n Students of urbanism, especially Americans, are at this point waiting for the other shoe to drop. Planned communities, we are taught, are always failures. They seek, hubristically, to \u201corganize freedom\u201d<\/a> and inevitably do not function as intended. We see the same thing time and again. Planned public spaces become neglected, often turning into hotbeds of crime.<\/p>\n While this might be a familiar story, it is not Radburn\u2019s story. An incorporated community in the borough of Fair Lawn, Radburn’s layout really does function as intended. Pedestrians make ample use of the footpaths, which are refreshingly insulated from the constant buzz of traffic that characterizes life in Bergen County. I\u2019m not sure this community manifests utopia, but it is a place its residents take pride in.<\/p>\n I first learned about Radburn a few years ago when I moved to Bergen County from Manhattan. I was on a playground, pushing my son on the swing next to another parent who spoke effusively about her 1920s subdivision with \u201cno backyards, just a shared courtyard.\u201d In Radburn, I learned, residents can walk to the local shopping center and school without needing to cross the street. As someone who was struck by cars multiple times as a distracted adolescent, I was envious.<\/p>\n A diagram of Radburn’s layout. The shaded area was not built. The shared green spaces in between the superblocks \u2014 Radburn A and B \u2014 are protected from the roads and lined with pedestrian walkways. Image by Fgrammen, CC0, marked public domain, via Wikimedia Commons<\/a><\/em><\/p><\/div>\n Looking more closely into Radburn, I was able to wrap my mind around the layout. Essentially, the neighborhood is organized into superblocks<\/a> with the backs of houses facing onto a public park crossed by pedestrian paths. There are really two parks, Radburn A and Radburn B, but they are contiguous. Residents access their homes by car by turning into the famous cul-de-sacs, among the first ever built in the U.S. (Some say this cul-de-sac in Buffalo<\/a> is the actual first one). By Jersey standards, the lots and homes are relatively small, giving the neighborhood an intimate feel. There are a blend of freestanding homes, townhomes and apartment buildings and the predominant architectural styles are unassuming and quaint, mostly Tudor and Colonial typologies. While this is a centrally planned community, there is enough variety to offset the homogenous feel that so many similar developments suffer from.<\/p>\n In a 1930 article in the journal<\/a> “Landscape Architecture,” Radburn\u2019s landscape architect Marjorie Sewell Cautley explains the key features of her proposal: “In the first place, there are no backyards. Instead, living rooms and porches open directly into little lawns and garden areas, and through the center of each group of gardens a walk leads safely to the park. The effect is quite the reverse of that on the street side: from every porch there is an extended view, across garden plots and flowering hedges, to the park beyond, a view which can never be spoiled by some neighbor’s garage or service wing, for these were so placed in the beginning to preserve that very view. Again the houses that seemed most shut in at the end of the short residence streets are the very ones which enjoy the greatest space and the most extended views up and down the parks.”<\/p>\n The picturesque scene Cautley described is still accurate today, almost 100 years later. The parks are likely even more beautiful than they were then, as the trees that Cautley planted have reached maturity. But what sets Radburn apart from other suburban neighborhoods is its livability. Several well-known Fair Lawn businesses are housed within the Radburn Plaza building, recognizable by its iconic clock tower. This building, which experienced significant fire damage several years ago, has since been carefully restored to its original appearance. Close by is the Old Dutch House, a historic tavern dating back to the era when the area was a Dutch colony. Opposite the Plaza Building stands the Radburn railroad station, which continues to serve passengers today via New Jersey Transit\u2019s Bergen County Line. Finally there is The Radburn School, an Elementary School situated on the edge of the \u201cB\u201d park. To me, this is the coolest part of Radburn \u2014 the fact that kids can get to school without having to cross the street.<\/p>\n A Radburn cul-de-sac. It might seem commonplace now, but at the time these types of streets were unknown in America. The real magic of Radburn, however, is visible behind the houses, where small lawns open onto the shared green space. | Dmadeo<\/a>,\u00a0Radburn-cul-de-sac<\/a>,\u00a0CC BY-SA 4.0<\/a><\/em><\/p><\/div>\n Currently, 3,100 people live in Radburn. A townhouse development is currently under construction that will expand the community somewhat, but it is still far from the original proposal, which was meant to house 30,000. Like many other building projects of the 1930s, Radburn\u2019s growth was stalled by the Great Depression.<\/p>\n Radburn\u2019s success led to a new paradigm of building called Radburn design housing<\/a>, in which residences are created to face onto a shared courtyard rather than the road. Many such developments were created all around the world, from Los Angeles to the UK to Australia. However, the majority were not as successful as the original. Like many other types of centrally planned communities or \u201cprojects,\u201d Radburn style estates became hotbeds of crime. Urbanists, echoing Jane Jacobs\u2019 critique of planned developments of all kinds (she specifically criticizes Radburn in The Death and Life of Great American Cities<\/em>), blame the fact these communities are cut off from the surrounding urban fabric. Like awkward little islands, they are unable to flexibly adapt to new changes and are thus less resilient than urban areas that have not been centrally planned. In a 1998 interview<\/a>, the architect responsible for introducing the Radburn paradigm to public housing in New South Wales, Australia, Philip Cox, spoke regretfully about a Radburn-designed estate in the suburb of Villawood: “Everything that could go wrong in a society went wrong…. It became the centre of drugs, it became the centre of violence and, eventually, the police refused to go into it. It was hell.”<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blog.architizer.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/airview-radburn-new-jersey-106b7c-1024.jpg\")
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