In a previous blog, this blogger mentioned the loyal followers of either the classical urban setting or the natural pastoral landscape. This blog will mainly describe the rural viewpoint and its relationship to the suburbs particularly the third tier settlements. In the mid 19th Century, a group of landscape painters known as the Hudson River School of Landscape Painters depicted idyllic view of the landscape. A good illustration of this pastoral depiction is the above picture entitled “Cider Making in the Country.”
A number of writers, planning individuals, and other visionaries elaborated on these visual depictions such as the noted transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson in his writing entitled “Nature” and Edward Hale in his writing entitled “Sybaris and Other Homes.” Hale stressed his vision of settlement as stated in the following: “all along now were houses, each with is pretty garden of perhaps an acre, no fences… [said] houses were of one story…this was a mere suburban habitat.” (Cited on page 33.) The actual communities of Litchfield, Connecticut and Concord, Massachusetts epitomized many of these ideals spelled out by these two writers.
Ebenezer Howard refined these ideals in his concept of the Garden City. This was followed by the outstanding work of Frederick Law Olmsted and others. In the classic “The Anglo –American Suburb” edited by famed architect Robert A.M. Stern, there is a direct reference to Olmstead and Calvert Vaux who designed Riverside, Illinois. Riverside was considered a prototype “suburban village” and followed “the principle that a suburban community could be planned as a unit and would retain its identity…protected by greenbelts, gates and other barriers. (Cited on page 24.)
At this point, it is necessary to further explain the concept of “village.” The use of the term “village” may also be misapplied to various planning type discussions. There are suburban villages, rural villages (as previously noted), urban villages, industrial villages, craftsman’s village, and political entities known incorporated villages. These phrases deserve further clarification. The classic historic village is a community set in a countryside setting. Examples of this are depicted in the document entitled “Hamlets of the Adirondacks: A Manual of Development Strategies”. Here, the local villages and hamlets “are unique physically and culturally” in terms of “landscape setting, history, people, spaces, buildings and districts.” (Cited on page 6.)
In an article in the May/June 1992 issue of Utne Reader, entitled “Rediscovering the Village” by Robert Gerloff, a more urbanized village is defined as “a compact gathering of houses, apartment buildings, corner groceries, Main Street shops and offices. A village is friendly to pedestrians, a place where you can easily walk to work or to the grocery.” Page 94) “It is also a community of diverse individuals and families.” (Cited on page 96.)
An industrial village s described the article entitled “Industrial Village Communities in the United States by John Nolan. (Cited in Garden Cities and Town Planning, 1921, vol 11 no 1, pages 6-9.) Indian Hill in Worcester, Massachusetts was considered an industrial village.
Said village must be “town planned”, must have no more than 12 houses per acre, must have social amenities including open spaces, must reserve the natural features of the community, and should have co-operative or public ownership of the site.
The Craftsman’s Village is designed “for living, working, and marketing, all in your own tri-level condominium unit. It is a haven for artists and trades folk who want to live simply and independently while going about their work and promoting their creative products” in shops that are small and the shopkeepers are friendly. An example of this is located in Oak Creek Wisconsin on four aces of “suburban-rural land next to a wooded area and a lake.” (Cited in promotional material on this village.)
The political term village is defined by the various states. For example, in New York, “a village is a general purpose municipal corporation formed voluntarily by the residents of an area in one or more town to provide municipal services.” There are 574 of these villages in the state which range in size from 50 to 50,000 in population. In Nassau County, Long Island several of these village are closer to the upper limits in population. (Cited from unreferenced sources.)
Getting back to the discussion on the rural influence of settlement patterns upon the suburban landscape, several new prototypes evolved after Riverside. Many of these communities were established in the outer edges of metropolitan areas. Two good examples are Radburn, New Jersey, and Greeenbelt, Maryland. Radburn was “conceived” by Clarence Stein as a “town for the motor age.” Radburn was “a combination of ideas derived from the Garden Suburb tradition with new strategies developed to deal…with the automobile.” Among its characteristics included the freestanding single family home with garage. (Cited in Anglo-American Suburb, page 84.) Other elements included: one, the superblock; two, specialized roads built for “one use”; three, “complete separation of pedestrian and automobile; four, “houses turned around …facing gardens and parks”; five, “park as backbone of the neighborhood.” (Cited on pages 41-44, “Toward New Towns for America” by C.S. Stein.)
The origination of the Greenbelt towns was initiated by the two Federal Acts: one, the Emergency Relief Appropriation Act and two, the National Recovery Act in 1925. President Hoover then established the Resettlement Administration and appointed Guy Tugwell as Director. Under Tugwell’s influence the Federal government became interested in the production of new towns. Greenbelt towns were experiments in combining the Garden City ideal, the rRadburn idea, and the neighborhood unit together. Greenbelt, Maryland, which is located on the outer fringes of both Washington and Baltimore, became one of these communities. Key elements of this Greenbelt community included the walking system, underpasses, individual gardens, the use of open spaces, the shopping center and the “related community center” and the integration of the development with the natural features of the site particularly its development on the curved plateau utilizing a crescent roadway network. (Cited in Stein, pages 136-150.)
In the past seventy years or so, other communities have evolved such as the post war and “sit com” suburbs. The main stay automobile suburb blossomed into production after World War II due to two major underlying factors: one, the Federal government creating new mortgage instrument which made the purchase of single family homes more attractive; two, the major improvements in the highway system which made connectivity between the urban fringe areas and the central city easily accessible by automobile.
A good example, of the post-war suburb are the Levittown settlements created on the fringes of Philadelphia and New York which were characterized by long superblocks dominated by mass produced single family homes, long and wide streets, and pod type developments with little integration of land uses. (Cited in the book entitled “Yard, Street, Park” by Girling and Helphand, page 82.) These type of suburbs were labeled “sprawl” by many in the planning field, despite their unique positive qualities of providing affordable housing to large segment of the population.
In 1969, Ian McHarg’s classic work entitled “Design with Nature” was published which added a more holistic approach to physical planning on the landscape. New “greenfield” type developments would be designed utilizing an overlay method analyzing the various natural features such as hillsides, wetlands, and soils. This was exemplified in his conceptual plans for Staten Island which at the time was considered a suburb of Manhattan.
This was further refined by the concept of open space development design that was popularized by Yaro, Arendt, and others in the book entitled “Dealing with Change in the Connecticut River Valley.” For example, the community of Hadley, Massachusetts which is located on the far outer edge of the Springfield metropolitan area, was studied for potential development by depicting “net usable land area” by deducting floodplains, wetlands, steep slopes…publicly owned lands, and parcels protected by permanent conservation easements” from the total land mass in the community. More creative developments were illustrated in concentrated locations that preserved the unique natural features and scenic vistas of the community. (Cited in “Rural by Design” by Randall Arendt, page 250.)
A more livable form of development for suburbs has evolved that pursues “an environmentally sensitive sustainable lifestyle. (Cited in “Yard, Street Park” page 173.) Good examples of these “ecoburbs” are the communities of Woodlands in Texas and Village Homes in Davis, California.
The former settlement is indicative of the expansive “Greenfield” development of master-planned communities, while the latter is much more modest in scale. In the Village Homes concept, the open space design has been further refined to utilize the open space in a more productive manner including harvesting home grown crops.
The rural contribution to the development of third tier suburbs will evolve further as time marches on. The need for renewable sources of energy will create situations that will make these third tier suburbs more self-sustaining and refocus community concepts within its citizenry.
Ebenezer Howard refined these ideals in his concept of the Garden City. This was followed by the outstanding work of Frederick Law Olmsted and others. In the classic “The Anglo –American Suburb” edited by famed architect Robert A.M. Stern, there is a direct reference to Olmstead and Calvert Vaux who designed Riverside, Illinois. Riverside was considered a prototype “suburban village” and followed “the principle that a suburban community could be planned as a unit and would retain its identity…protected by greenbelts, gates and other barriers. (Cited on page 24.)
At this point, it is necessary to further explain the concept of “village.” The use of the term “village” may also be misapplied to various planning type discussions. There are suburban villages, rural villages (as previously noted), urban villages, industrial villages, craftsman’s village, and political entities known incorporated villages. These phrases deserve further clarification. The classic historic village is a community set in a countryside setting. Examples of this are depicted in the document entitled “Hamlets of the Adirondacks: A Manual of Development Strategies”. Here, the local villages and hamlets “are unique physically and culturally” in terms of “landscape setting, history, people, spaces, buildings and districts.” (Cited on page 6.)
In an article in the May/June 1992 issue of Utne Reader, entitled “Rediscovering the Village” by Robert Gerloff, a more urbanized village is defined as “a compact gathering of houses, apartment buildings, corner groceries, Main Street shops and offices. A village is friendly to pedestrians, a place where you can easily walk to work or to the grocery.” Page 94) “It is also a community of diverse individuals and families.” (Cited on page 96.)
An industrial village s described the article entitled “Industrial Village Communities in the United States by John Nolan. (Cited in Garden Cities and Town Planning, 1921, vol 11 no 1, pages 6-9.) Indian Hill in Worcester, Massachusetts was considered an industrial village.
Said village must be “town planned”, must have no more than 12 houses per acre, must have social amenities including open spaces, must reserve the natural features of the community, and should have co-operative or public ownership of the site.
The Craftsman’s Village is designed “for living, working, and marketing, all in your own tri-level condominium unit. It is a haven for artists and trades folk who want to live simply and independently while going about their work and promoting their creative products” in shops that are small and the shopkeepers are friendly. An example of this is located in Oak Creek Wisconsin on four aces of “suburban-rural land next to a wooded area and a lake.” (Cited in promotional material on this village.)
The political term village is defined by the various states. For example, in New York, “a village is a general purpose municipal corporation formed voluntarily by the residents of an area in one or more town to provide municipal services.” There are 574 of these villages in the state which range in size from 50 to 50,000 in population. In Nassau County, Long Island several of these village are closer to the upper limits in population. (Cited from unreferenced sources.)
Getting back to the discussion on the rural influence of settlement patterns upon the suburban landscape, several new prototypes evolved after Riverside. Many of these communities were established in the outer edges of metropolitan areas. Two good examples are Radburn, New Jersey, and Greeenbelt, Maryland. Radburn was “conceived” by Clarence Stein as a “town for the motor age.” Radburn was “a combination of ideas derived from the Garden Suburb tradition with new strategies developed to deal…with the automobile.” Among its characteristics included the freestanding single family home with garage. (Cited in Anglo-American Suburb, page 84.) Other elements included: one, the superblock; two, specialized roads built for “one use”; three, “complete separation of pedestrian and automobile; four, “houses turned around …facing gardens and parks”; five, “park as backbone of the neighborhood.” (Cited on pages 41-44, “Toward New Towns for America” by C.S. Stein.)
The origination of the Greenbelt towns was initiated by the two Federal Acts: one, the Emergency Relief Appropriation Act and two, the National Recovery Act in 1925. President Hoover then established the Resettlement Administration and appointed Guy Tugwell as Director. Under Tugwell’s influence the Federal government became interested in the production of new towns. Greenbelt towns were experiments in combining the Garden City ideal, the rRadburn idea, and the neighborhood unit together. Greenbelt, Maryland, which is located on the outer fringes of both Washington and Baltimore, became one of these communities. Key elements of this Greenbelt community included the walking system, underpasses, individual gardens, the use of open spaces, the shopping center and the “related community center” and the integration of the development with the natural features of the site particularly its development on the curved plateau utilizing a crescent roadway network. (Cited in Stein, pages 136-150.)
In the past seventy years or so, other communities have evolved such as the post war and “sit com” suburbs. The main stay automobile suburb blossomed into production after World War II due to two major underlying factors: one, the Federal government creating new mortgage instrument which made the purchase of single family homes more attractive; two, the major improvements in the highway system which made connectivity between the urban fringe areas and the central city easily accessible by automobile.
A good example, of the post-war suburb are the Levittown settlements created on the fringes of Philadelphia and New York which were characterized by long superblocks dominated by mass produced single family homes, long and wide streets, and pod type developments with little integration of land uses. (Cited in the book entitled “Yard, Street, Park” by Girling and Helphand, page 82.) These type of suburbs were labeled “sprawl” by many in the planning field, despite their unique positive qualities of providing affordable housing to large segment of the population.
In 1969, Ian McHarg’s classic work entitled “Design with Nature” was published which added a more holistic approach to physical planning on the landscape. New “greenfield” type developments would be designed utilizing an overlay method analyzing the various natural features such as hillsides, wetlands, and soils. This was exemplified in his conceptual plans for Staten Island which at the time was considered a suburb of Manhattan.
This was further refined by the concept of open space development design that was popularized by Yaro, Arendt, and others in the book entitled “Dealing with Change in the Connecticut River Valley.” For example, the community of Hadley, Massachusetts which is located on the far outer edge of the Springfield metropolitan area, was studied for potential development by depicting “net usable land area” by deducting floodplains, wetlands, steep slopes…publicly owned lands, and parcels protected by permanent conservation easements” from the total land mass in the community. More creative developments were illustrated in concentrated locations that preserved the unique natural features and scenic vistas of the community. (Cited in “Rural by Design” by Randall Arendt, page 250.)
A more livable form of development for suburbs has evolved that pursues “an environmentally sensitive sustainable lifestyle. (Cited in “Yard, Street Park” page 173.) Good examples of these “ecoburbs” are the communities of Woodlands in Texas and Village Homes in Davis, California.
The former settlement is indicative of the expansive “Greenfield” development of master-planned communities, while the latter is much more modest in scale. In the Village Homes concept, the open space design has been further refined to utilize the open space in a more productive manner including harvesting home grown crops.
The rural contribution to the development of third tier suburbs will evolve further as time marches on. The need for renewable sources of energy will create situations that will make these third tier suburbs more self-sustaining and refocus community concepts within its citizenry.
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