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Connectivity: Historical Background
Интересная статья, упоминающая мой любимый Radburn, как исторически важный шаг в истории американского градостроения.

Постараюсь найти время и превести, там очень симпатичный мне момент описан, как в тридцатые годы отказались от немецкой идеи высоток в пригородах, в пользу частных домиков и переулков.
И какую, удивительно положительную роль, может сыграть регулирование и финансирование... совсем не звериный оскал капитализма.

Thus, disconnected street networks became encoded into the very foundation of U.S. land development for the remainder of the twentieth century.

 

Le Corbusier had strong words for the vertical urbanism produced by fellow modernists such as Hilberseimer:

A wretched kind of “modernism” this! The pedestrians in the air, the vehicles hogging the ground! It looks very clever: we shall all have a super time up on those catwalks. But those “R.U.R.” pedestrians will soon be living in “Metropolis,” becoming more depressed, more depraved, until one day they will blow up the catwalks, and the buildings, and the machines, and everything. This is a picture of anti-reason itself, of error, of thoughtlessness. Madness.

– The Radiant City, p. 122

Hilberseimer came to agree with his colleague’s criticism. Reflecting on his early 1920s ideas, he wrote:

The repetition of the blocks resulted in too much uniformity. Every natural thing was excluded: no tree or grassy area broke the monotony… the result was more a necropolis than a metropolis, a sterile landscape of asphalt and cement, inhuman in every aspect.

– In the Shadow of Mies: Ludwig Hilberseimer, Architect, Educator, and Urban Planner, p. 17.

Stein and Wright designed Radburn, N.J. in 1928, the first U.S. development planned exclusively with superblocks and cul de sacs. Residential blocks averaged about 2,500 feet in length, and each had parkland in its center.

Pedestrian pathways were carefully segregated from streets, and pedestrian underpasses allowed pedestrians to access commercial areas without crossing major roads.

Eleanor Roosevelt helped to form the corporation that built Radburn, and served on its board. This connection proved very convenient for Stein and the RPAA in the years to come. Stein designed or consulted on numerous developments that combined superblocks, cul de sacs, internal parks and pedestrian segregation from streets, most built with federal support and funding. The most well known areGreenbelt, MD (1935) and Baldwin Hills Village, CA (1941). Some of the better known offshoots are Reston, VA (1963) and Village Homes, CA (1975).

Far more influential, however, was the federal government’s adoption of language and standards derived from Stein and the RPAA. The Federal Housing Administration’s 1936 bulletin Planning Neighborhoods for Small Housesexplicitly rejected thoroughfare connectivity on the grounds that it was wasteful, expensive and hazardous. The FHA recommended dendritic thoroughfare patterns: cul de sacs or loops that led to collectors and arterials. The FHA prescribed cul de sacs as the most attractive street layout for family dwellings.

The incentive for adopting FHA standards was guaranteed mortgages. What developer in his right mind could pass up a no-lose investment? The FHA invited developers to submit their plans for review. Next,

FHA consultants would then analyze plans and suggest layouts conforming to FHA guidelines for securing an insured mortgage. It was a powerful control tool and naturally, almost all subdivision developers submitted plans for review to ensure a guaranteed mortgage.

- Streets and the Shaping of Towns and Cities, p. 85

The authority went to the top. One FHA administrator told his advisory board that through insured mortgages, “You could also control the population trend, the neighborhood standards, and material and everything else through the president.”

The RPAA had astonishing success getting their principles institutionalized (although some of the consequences were certainly unintended).

Margaret Mead once said, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world” — especially when they have the ear of the president.