The neighborhood concept of urban design is one of the major planning landmarks that shaped the urban form of housing design in many countries in the twentieth century. The neighborhood idea by Henry Wright and Clarence Stein exemplified plans for Radburn, and the idea of Clarence Perry were published in 1929. Their urban principles included the idea of a superblock of residential units grouped around a central yard, a separation of vehicles and pedestrians and local access roads. The primary aim of clusters of superblocks was to form a self-contained neighborhood. A group of the same neighborhood would then build a city. On the other hand, Perry had an idea of the physical arrangement of elementary schools, small parks, local shops, and playgrounds. The provision of these amenities and facilities is the whole idea behind Perry’s concept of neighborhood (Krieger, 2009).
Original neighborhood concepts comprised of enclaves, blocks, superblocks and a neighborhood. The most fundamental entity of Radburn neighborhood model is an enclave of twenty or so houses arrayed in a U-formation. Fronts of the houses faced a court while the back of the houses had a garden. Six of such superblocks formed a neighborhood with major roads and natural features (Vance, 1990).
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Diffusion of the neighborhood concept was followed by publicity about Radburn in magazine articles and discussions at meetings of professional organizations. Perry’s unit idea had spread to different parts of the world. Radburn, Stein, and Wright produced other groundbreaking plans such as the idea for the plan of Greenbelt New Town in Maryland and the Chatham Village in Pittsburgh in 1937 (Perry, 1933).
