Radburn system

The Radburn design for public housing (Radburn housing, Radburn design, Radburn principle or Radburn concept) is planned housing estates based on a design originally used in Radburn, New Jersey, USA

The 'Radburn' design is typified by the backyards of homes facing the street and the fronts of homes facing each other over common yards. It is an offshoot of American designs from English garden city theories (Garden city movement) which culminated in the design of the partly built 1929 Radburn, New Jersey estate.

In America the Radburn idea reached its ultimate expression in Los Angeles, California with the design and construction of Clarence Stein's and Robert Alexander's Baldwin Hills Village - now known as 'The Village Green'. It opened as apartments for lease to the public on December 7, 1941. Between 1973 and 1978 it was transformed into an HOA community of 629 unit Owners. It has been designated a National Historic Landmark.

It is often referred to as an urban design experiment that is typified by failure due to the laneways used as common entries and exits to the houses helping ghettoise communities and encourage crime; it has ultimately lead to efforts to 'de-Radburn' or partially demolish American Radburn designed public housing areas.

When interviewed in 1998, the architect responsible for introducing the design to public housing in New South Wales, Philip Cox, was reported to have admitted with regard to an American Radburn designed estate in the suburb of Villawood, "Everything that could go wrong in a society went wrong," "It became the centre of drugs, it became the centre of violence and, eventually, the police refused to go into it. It was hell."

The impact of Radburn's urban form on energy consumption for short local trips was considered in a 1970 study by John Lansing of the University of Michigan. The study found Radburn's design to have important implications for energy conservation, recording that 47% of its residents shopped for groceries on foot, while comparable figures were 23% for Reston, Virginia (another Radburn-type development, but more car oriented) and only 8% for a nearby unplanned community.

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