The neighborhood unit: Physical design or physical determinism?

Journal of Planning History

Volumn 8, Issue 2, 2009, Pages 111-132

  Lawhon, Larry Lloyd ^a  

^a KANSAS STATE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

Clarence Perry; Forest Hills Gardens; Neighborhood Unit; New Urbanism; Radburn

Indexed keywords

INSTITUTIONAL FRAMEWORK; LOCAL PLANNING; NEIGHBORHOOD; NEW TOWN; REGIONAL PLANNING; SOCIAL IMPACT;

EID: 65249114782     PISSN: 15385132     EISSN: 15526585     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/1538513208327072     Document Type: Article

References (69)

1. C.A. Perry, " The Neighborhood Unit, a Scheme of Arrangement for the Family-Life Community." Monograph one, Neighborhood and Community Planning, Regional Plan of New York and Its Environs (New York: Committee on Regional Plan of New York and Its Environs, 1929). 2-140.
2. The "neighborhood unit" concept was first publicly presented by Perry on December 26, 1923, at a joint meeting of the National Community Center Association and the American Sociological Society in Washington, D.C. Perry shared the platform with Robert E. Park of concentric zone theory fame. According to the meeting program, Perry presented an illustrated paper titled, "A Community Unit in City Planning and Development." See J. Dahir, The Neighborhood Unit Plan: Its Spread and Acceptance (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1947);
3. and American Sociological Society, Papers and Proceedings, Eighteenth Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Society, vol. 18 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press).
4. J.M. Glenn, L. Brandt, and F.E. Andrews, Russell Sage Foundation, 1907-1947, 2 vols. ( Philadelphia: Wm. F. Fell Company, 1947 ).
5. The Russell Sage Foundation "met the entire cost of the [Regional Survey and Plan] Committee's work at a total expenditure of over $1,000,000" (Glenn, Brandt, and Andrews, Russell Sage Foundation, 442). The foundation felt that the survey and plan would likely win greater public support and interest if it were not identified with any existing agency.
6. For this purpose, the foundation gave the committee "the status of an independent organization, not subject to supervision by the Board of Trustees or the general director.... Throughout its existence, however, a majority of its members were trustees of the Foundation" (Glenn, Brandt, and Andrews, Russell Sage Foundation, 442). The foundation also decided not to print the survey and subsequent plan under the foundation's imprint but rather allowed them to be published by the Regional Plan of New York and Its Environs and to be copyrighted by the Regional Survey and Plan Committee.
7. W. Fulton, The New Urbanism: Hope or Hype for American Communities ( Washington, DC: Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, 1996 ).
8. T. Banerjee and W.C. Baer, Beyond the Neighborhood Unit (New York: Plenum, 1984). page 2.
9. K. Lynch, Good City Form (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1994). page 246.
10. According to James Dahir, F. J. Osborn, editor of Ebenezer Howard's Garden Cities of To-Morrow, claims that the neighborhood unit concept was part of a proposal submitted by Howard in 1898. See also J. D. Tetlow, "Sources of the Neighbourhood Idea," Journal of the Town Planning Institute, April 1959: 113, in which the "early germ of the idea" can be traced to early nineteenth-century writers Buckingham, Henry George, Kropotkin, and Ebenezer Howard.
11. See also D. L. Johnson, "Origin of the Neighbourhood Unit," Planning Perspectives 17 (2002): 227-45.
12. L. Mumford, "The Neighborhood and the Neighborhood Unit," Town Planning Review 24 (1954): 250-70; and J. Dahir, Communities for Better Living (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1950).
13. Perry, "The Neighborhood Unit."
14. Perry would be employed by the Russell Sage Foundation from 1909 through September 30, 1937, when he retired. He died in September 1944, and his funeral was held at the Church-in-the-Gardens, donated by Mrs. Russell Sage, at Forest Hills Gardens.
15. Glenn, Brandt, and Andrews, Russell Sage Foundation.
16. Dahir, The Neighborhood Unit Plan.
17. Glenn, Brandt, and Andrews, Russell Sage Foundation.
18. Glenn, Brandt, and Andrews, Russell Sage Foundation.Ibid., 49.
19. Dahir, The Neighborhood Unit Plan ; and R. Lubove " New Cities for Old: The Urban Reconstruction Program of the 1930's, " The Social Studies 53 (November 1962). 203-13.
20. Lubove, "New Cities for Old."
21. C.H. Cooley, Social Organization ( New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1909 ).
22. C.H. Cooley, Social Organization, Ibid.
23. P. Hall, Cities of Tomorrow ( Cambridge, MA: Blackwell, 1988 ).
24. P. Hall, Cities of Tomorrow, Ibid.
25. Dahir, The Neighborhood Unit Plan ; and Lubove, " New Cities for Old ", page 20.
26. Mumford, "The Neighborhood and the Neighborhood Unit."
27. Mumford, "The Neighborhood and the Neighborhood Unit." Ibid., 260.
28. The records of the Russell Sage Foundation indicate that in the summer of 1923, members of the Foundation Committee of the Regional Plan traveled to England to meet with Raymond Unwin and that Unwin came "to New York in the fall at the invitation of the committee for further conference" (Glenn, Brandt, and Andrews, Russell Sage Foundation, page 441). It was likely that at this time, Perry had the opportunity to meet with Unwin at the Sage Foundation Building.
29. C. Silver, " Neighborhood Planning in Historical Perspective, " Journal of the American Planning Association 51, no. 2 (Spring 1985). 161-74.
30. Banerjee and Baer, Beyond the Neighborhood Unit, 3-4.
31. H. Gillette, " The Evolution of Neighborhood Planning from the Progressive Era to the 1949 Housing Act, " Journal of Urban History 9, no. 4 (1983). 421-44.
32. Banerjee and Baer, Beyond the Neighborhood Unit.
33. Banerjee and Baer, Beyond the Neighborhood Unit. Ibid., 17.
34. Banerjee and Baer, Beyond the Neighborhood Unit. Ibid.
35. Banerjee and Baer, Beyond the Neighborhood Unit. Ibid., 20.
36. Banerjee and Baer, Beyond the Neighborhood Unit. Ibid.
37. Banerjee and Baer, Beyond the Neighborhood Unit. Ibid.
38. Dahir, The Neighborhood Unit Plan, 22.
39. D. Schaffer, Garden Cities for America: The Radburn Experience ( Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1982 ).
40. Banerjee and Baer, Beyond the Neighborhood Unit.
41. H.J. Gans, People and Plans: Essays on Urban Problems and Solutions ( New York: Basic Books, 1968 ).
42. J. Lang, Creating Architectural Theory: The Role of the Behavioral Sciences in Environmental Design (New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1987). 101.
43. J. Lang, Creating Architectural Theory: The Role of the Behavioral Sciences in Environmental Design, Ibid.
44. N.N. Patricios, " The Neighborhood Concept: A Retrospective of Physical Design and Social Interaction, " Journal of Architectural and Planning Research 19, no. 1 (Spring 2002). 70-90.
45. J. Tannenbaum, " The Neighborhood: A Socio-Psychological Analysis, " Land Economics 24 (November 1948). 361.
46. Schaffer, Garden Cities for America, 157.
47. T. Martinson, Dreamscape: The Pursuit of Happiness in Postwar Suburbia (New York: Carroll and Graf, 2000). 167.
48. Banerjee and Baer, Beyond the Neighborhood Unit, 29. (Complete documentation for sources utilized in note 45: Burby, R.J. III, and Weiss, S.F. New Communities U.S.A. Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, 1976. Werthman, C., Mandell, J.S., and Dienstfrey, T. Planning and the Purchase Decision: Why People Buy in Planned Communities? Berkeley: Institute of Urban and Regional Development, University of California, 1965).
49. Banerjee and Baer, Beyond the Neighborhood Unit.
50. Gans, People and Plans.
51. Gans, People and Plans. Ibid., 153.
52. L. Freeman, " The Effects of Sprawl on Neighborhood Social Ties: An Explanatory Analysis," Journal of the American Planning Association 67 (Winter 2001). 69-77.
53. A.A. Solow, C.E. Ham, and E.O. Donnelly, The Concept of The Neighborhood Unit: Its Emergence and Influence on Residential Environmental Planning and Development, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, University of Pittsburgh, 1969: 73-75;
54. L.L. Lawhon, "Planners' Perceptions of Their Role in Socially Responsive Neighborhood Design," Journal of Architectural and Planning Research 20 (Summer 2003): 153-63.
55. Gans, People and Plans, 153.
56. Gans, People and Plans,Ibid, 160.
57. Gans, People and Plans, Ibid, 161.
58. H.J. Gans, " Planning and Social Life, " Journal of the American Institute of Planners 27 (May 1961). 139.
59. Solow, Ham, and Donnelly, The Concept of The Neighborhood Unit, 73. The study surveyed 258 members of the American Institute of Planners (now the American Planning Association).
60. Lawhon, "Planners' Perceptions of Their Role in Socially Responsive Neighborhood Design." The survey sample was drawn from those members of the American Planning Association (APA), a subset of APA members who have designated on their enrollment small town and rural planning as their area of interest. This subset was selected because of limited financial resources of the researcher and the fact that a small random sample of the APA membership was unavailable. Of those responding to the survey, more than 50 percent were employed in communities with populations greater than 50,000.
61. Ibid., 157. Another 25 percent disagreed, whereas 1 percent strongly disagreed with the statement (19 percent had no opinion).
62. Ibid., 159. Thirteen percent disagreed, and 2 percent strongly disagreed; 11 percent had no opinion on this statement.
63. See J. L. Nasar, "Does Neotraditional Development Build Community?" Journal of Planning Education and Research 23 (2003): 58-68;
64. J. Kim and R. Kaplan, "Physical and Psychological Factors in Sense of Community: New Urbanist Kentlands and Nearby Orchard Village," Environment and Behavior 36 (2004): 313-40;
65. G. Knapp and E. Talen, "New Urbanism and Smart Growth: A Few Words from the Academy," International Regional Science Review 28 (2005):107-18.
66. E. L. Birch, "Five Generations of the Garden City: Tracing Howard's Legacy in Twentieth-Century Residential Planning," in From Garden City to Green City: The Legacy of Ebenezer Howard, ed. K. C. Parsons and D. Schuyler (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002), 171-200.
67. From Garden City to Green City: The Legacy of Ebenezer Howard, Ibid, 173.
68. From Garden City to Green City: The Legacy of Ebenezer Howard, Ibid, 186.
69. Solow, Ham, and Donnelly found in a survey of 258 members of the American Institute of Planners (now the American Planning Association), that about half of the 1969 AIP Conference respondents thought the neighborhood unit concept was useful, valid, and ideal for public policy, and nearly 80 percent used the concept in practice. (Solow, Ham, and Donnelly, The Concept of The Neighborhood Unit: 75. Similar findings were demonstrated in a more current survey of 831 planners with membership in the American Planning Association (Lawhon, "Planners' Perceptions of Their Role in Socially Responsive Neighborhood Design"). The respondents indicated that the neighborhood unit is used for design review in at least 56 percent of all respondents' communities and is mentioned by name or by reference in the comprehensive plans or regulations of 13 percent of the respondent communities.