Talk:Radburn design housing

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Objectively, this article uses a small sample set to criticize an urban planning concept. I live in Radburn NJ and I have lived in an urban development consisting of large apartment blocks arranged around a superblock and adjacent to public housing arranged in a similar fashion. You cannot distinguish the social failures simply by blaming the housing design; rather it is the placement of transient residents alongside "needy" residents such as elderly who have nowhere else to go and cannot defend themselves or stand up for others against criminal activity. Transient residents have no stake in the community, thus they either ignore or are intimidated by destructive forces and have little incentive to become involved. It is easier to pick up and leave when you don't have a mortgage or a bank account. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.250.111.226 (talk • contribs)

Why did it fail?
This is an interesting topic, but I still can't see just why they failed?

Can anyone expand on this? Are there any good sources?

I can understand why some locations fail as housing, mostly owing to social factors outside the house design. But as houses, these look like an attractive proposition to live in - and they were adopted as EPCOT. Is it really their housing layout that caused problems? Which aspect, the front or the back? Andy Dingley (talk) 14:36, 23 January 2016 (UTC)


 * The citation I've just added (Kilpatrick and Patel; ISBN 9780367271299) suggests some reasons why the layout was unsuccessful, at least in one case: Houses too far from the roads, resulting in an absence of properly-overlooked streets. High rear garden fences backing onto streets. Parking areas distant from homes leaving cars vulnerable to crime. Segregation of pedestrians and cars left residents concerned that the vehicular road was used as a 'race track'. HungryHorace (talk) 21:35, 13 July 2022 (UTC)