Philosophy of Greenbelt
The Garden City
The definition of a Garden City is "a town planned for industry and healthy living, of a size that makes possible a full measure of social life, but no larger, surrounded by a permanent rural belt, the whole of the land being in public ownership, or held in trust for the community." In 1903, the first Garden City, Letchworth, was founded in England. Ebenezer Howard, the father of the Garden City concept, was an English town planner of the early 20th century. His most notable book, Tomorrow: a Peaceful Path to Reform (1898) outlined the idea of the garden city and led to the formation of the Garden City Association in 1899. While the individual ideas behind the garden city were not revolutionary, and were in fact already popular planning concepts, Howard was the first to combine them into a style of city planning, one that remains extremely influential all over the world today.
Greenbelt, although a highly successful example of a Garden City, is lacking in some of the characteristics described by Howard. The city was not planned for industry and, while several significant corporations, most notably the NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) Goddard Space Center and the Department of Agriculture Research Center, are now based in Greenbelt, the town remains largely unfocused on industry. Greenbelt was also not very successful from an agricultural point of view; the open areas allotted for agriculture were instead used more commonly for recreation. The lack of agriculture in Greenbelt can be attributed to the rough topography of the southern 1200 acres, which were not developed, and the overworked soil on the limited farm land. Despite these flaws, Greenbelt exists still today as a monument to the Garden City concept.
The Radburn Idea
The Radburn Idea is based upon another planned community in Radburn, New Jersey. Radburn was called "The Town for the Motor Age" in 1929 when it was founded. Designed to meet the problems of modern society, Radburn followed architect Henry Wright's "Six Planks for a Housing Platform," which include: design comprehensively, allow ample site room, plan buildings in relation to each other, minimize danger, noise and inconvenience in transportation, placement of factories, and services like trash collection, and arrange for occupancy of houses on a fair basis relating to cost. Clarence Stein, the architect credited with the planning of Radburn, was also the architect for Greenbelt, suggesting an obvious connection in the planning principles used to design both cities.
Some characteristics of the Radburn Idea exhibited in Greenbelt include the use of superblocks with central greens, streets and paths that are insulated from each other, different kinds of roads for different purposes, houses with two fronts; one for service and one for "reposeful living," logical use of open space, space allotted for recreation, individual gardens, and the inclusion of a service yard on the street front of a house.
The Neighborhood Unit
The third leg of Greenbelt's architectural basis is the Neighborhood Unit, a slightly less conscious but equally important influence on the town. Clarence Perry, the father of the neighborhood unit concept, articulated the neighborhood principles as a self contained residential area bounded by streets, with shops at the intersection and a school in the middle. This distribution creates a central focus for a community (the school) and indeed creates more of a neighborhood feel.
The Neighborhood Unit was especially important when used, as it was in Greenbelt, in conjunction with the Radburn Idea of the superblocks. The way Greenbelt was designed, with cul-de-sacs grouped together to form superblocks, the community was in danger of becoming divided based on location of houses. With the Neighborhood Unit, residents are still grouped into small communities, but the focus of the entire town is on the school, an institution that affects all residents, especially in Greenbelt, where almost all of the original residents had young children. The Neighborhood Unit principles also helped with the placement of the roads, shopping center, community buildings government offices, and recreational areas.
