CLARENCE ARTHUR PERRY, Clarence Arthur Perry (1872 – September 6, 1944) was an American urban planner. WHAT IS A NEIGHBOURHOOD?ORIGIN OF NEIGHBOURHOODWHAT WAS THE NEED OF PLANNING A NEIGHBOURHOOD UNIT?

1. CLARENCE ARTHUR PERRY
NEIGHBOURHOOD PLANNING
SUBMITTED BY:
SHRIYANSHI CHOUDHARY
LEWANISA PYRBOT

2. CLARENCE ARTHUR PERRY
• Clarence Arthur Perry (1872 – September 6, 1944) was an
American urban planner. Perry devised the neighbourhood unit
plan, a residential community scheme disseminated through the
Regional Plan of New York and It Environs in 1929 that
influenced planning in US cities.
• He was born in Truxton, New York. He later worked in the New
York City planning department where he became a strong
advocate of the neighborhood unit. He was an early promoter of
neighborhood community and recreation centers.
• In 1909 he became associated with the Russell Sage
Foundation as associate director of recreation until 1937.

3. WHAT IS A NEIGHBOURHOOD?
• The term neighborhood is often used to
describe the sub-divisions of urban or
rural settlements. In its purest definition, a
neighborhood is the vicinity in which
people live.

4. ORIGIN OF NEIGHBOURHOOD
Since the early ages of humanity, for practical, economical, sociological and psychological reasons, people
have tended to live close together in sections of an area and form communities.
Those sections or neighborhoods have some particular physical or social characteristics that distinguish
them from the rest of the settlement. The clustering of these neighborhoods has formed towns, villages,
and cities.

5. WHAT WAS THE NEED OF PLANNING A
NEIGHBOURHOOD UNIT?
A planning concept evolved in response to the
degenerated environmental and social
conditions fostered as a consequence of
industrial revolution in the early 1900s.
One of the earliest authors to attempt a
definition of the ‘neighborhood unit’ in fairly
specific terms was Clarence Arthur Perry
Degenerated living conditions in industrial revolution

6. PERRY’S IDEA OF
NEIGHBOURHOOD
PURPOSE OF PERRY’S NEIGHBOURHOOD
• Perry’s neighborhood unit concept began as
a means of insulating the community from
the ill-effects of burgeoning sea of vehicular
traffic.
• However, it evolved to serve a much broader
purpose of providing a discernible identity for
the concept of the neighborhood, and of
offering to designers a framework for
disseminating the city into smaller subareas.

7. PERRY’S CONCEPT
• Perry described the neighborhood unit as
that populated area which would require
and support an elementary school with an
enrolment of between 1,000and 1,200
pupils. This would mean a population of
between 5,000 and 6,000 people.
• Developed as a low density dwelling district
with a population of 10 families per acre,
the neighborhood unit would occupy about
160 acres and have a shape which would
render it unnecessary for any child to walk
a distance of more than 400 mtr to school.

8. How the neighbourhood concept works
1 neighbourhood standing
alone = VILLAGE
Several neighbourhood
positioned together = TOWN
More neighbourhoods
together = CITY
● The aim of a neighbourhood unit is to make people form a community, to ensure safety and promote better living
conditions.

9. RADBURN BY C A PERRY

10. WHAT IS RADBURN?
• Radburn is an unincorporated
community located within Fair
Lawn in Bergen County, New
Jersey, United States. Radburn
was founded in 1929 as "a town
for the motor age".
• Its planners, Clarence Stein aimed
to incorporate modern planning
principles, which were then being
introduced into England's Garden
Cities.
• Perry's neighbourhood unit
concept was well-formulated by
the time Radburn was planned.

11. ZONING OF
RADBURN

12. DESIGN OF RADBURN
• Major arterials routes should not pass through residential
neighborhoods. Instead these streets should provide
boundaries of the neighborhood;
• Interior street patterns should be designed and constructed
through use of cul-de-sacs so as to encourage a quiet, safe
and low volume traffic movement and preservation of the
residential atmosphere.
• The neighborhood focal point should be the elementary
school centrally located, along with other institutions that
have service areas coincident with the neighborhood
boundaries
• The radius of the neighborhood should be a maximum of
400 mtr thus eliminating a long walk for any elementary
school child; and
• Shopping districts should be sited at the edge of
neighborhoods preferably at major street intersections.

13. COMPONENTS OF RADBURN
• ENCLAVE-GROUP OF 20 HOUSES
• BLOCK-3-4 ENCLAVES(USUALLY 4 IN NUMBER), ARRANGED AROUND
GREEN OR OPEN SPACES
• SUPERBLOCK-5 BLOCKS WITH CENTRAL PARKWAY
• NEIGHBOURHOOD- 4 TO 6 SUPERBLOCKS BOUNDED BY MAJOR
ROADS,CAN HAVE SMALL SCHOOLS OR COMMUNITY HALL

14. COMPONENTS OF RADBURN

15. BUILDING
TYPOLOGY

16. Centre Community Spaces
● The central zone of the unit has community spaces.
● The schools are especially placed here so that a child
never walks to the school more than,
a) ¼ mile or 0.4kms for elementary school
b) ½ mile or 0.8kms for middle school
c) 2 miles or 3 kms for high school
● All should be achieved without passing the arterial
road.
Centre community space

17. Internal and Arterial Streets
● The arterial roads are placed at the edges in order to
design and promote pedestrian movement in the
neighbourhood.
● The internal streets are designed in such a way that it
circulates throughout the unit and no other activities
can happen there except for the movement of
pedestrians.
● Internal streets are also designed for the safety of
children.
Arterial roads
Internal streets

18. Local Shopping Areas
● The commercial areas are placed at the perimeter of
the neighbourhood unit to restrict the inter traffic.
● This is also done to prevent creating unfriendly and
unsafe neighbourhood by intruding vehicular
movement.
Commercial areas

19. Open and Park Spaces
● Atleast 10% of the neighbourhood area should be
alloted for open and park areas.
● The open spaces also include children’s playgrounds.
● These open spaces helps in creating sufficient places
for interaction and increase community socialization.
- Open and
park spaces

20. CUL-DE-SACS
• The cul-de-sac or the dead-end street
came into use to eliminate through
traffic in a positive manner.
• Cul-de-sac terminate in a circular
pattern to retain their advantages, the
maximum length of 450 feet is
recommended.
• Long cul-de-sac, induced longer traffic
speed and make access to service line
and fire protection difficult.

21. PATHWAYS

22. LAYOUT OF HOUSING
UNITS
• The houses were placed in reverse order of
conventional placement on the lot.
• Kitchens and garages faced the roads, living
rooms and bedrooms turned towards the
gardens.
• Pathways provided uninterrupted pedestrian
access to continuous park strip, which led to
large open spaces within the center of a
superblock.

23. BLOCK UNIT
• Width of the road=6m
• Width of footway=2m
• Distance of the porch from the footway=18m
• Distance between two footways=20m

24. FACILITIES AT RADBURN
• The 2900 residents of Radburn share 23 acres of
interior parks, which yield 345 square feet per
person.
• These parks provide small districts for the city.
• The plaza building is Radburn’s only neighbourhood
shopping centre, and its tall clock tower has been a
neighbourhood landmark since 1927.
• Radburn works as a garden city and a great example
of a well designed community because every piece
is integrated perfectly into one body.

25. IMPACT OF NEIGHBORHOOD
CONCEPT ACROSS THE GLOBE
• The principles identified by Perry were
endorsed by most planning and design
organizations in planning and designing
neighborhoods.
• The neighborhood unit has formed the
basis of planning and building of most of
the first generation British New Towns
(1946-1950).
• Perry’s principles have been the building
blocks of many neighborhoods such as
Radburn, New Jersey; Greenbelt, Maryland;
Greenhills, Ohio etc.

26. CITIES ON RADBURN’S
CONCEPT
• Figure shows Aerial photograph of
Portland, Oregon, showing its pedestrian-
permeable network of relatively low-
speed arterials at a maximum quarter-
mile (400 m) spacing, which continues at
grade across the river as well as much of
the central freeway system.

27. OREGON, PORTLAND
• Image shows the neighbourhood of Oregon,Portland based on
Radburn’s design;
main roads
cul de sacs
school (center)
commercial spaces
service roads

28. THANK YOU