Urban WIldlife Habitats
- Introduction
WILDWOOD
Prepared by: Devin Dietrich (Dec. 04)
WELCOME
This commentary will show that Wildwood Park in Winnipeg is a good example of two dimensions of urban ecology: watershed planning and urban development (flood management) and urban wildlife habitat. The first order of business is to understand the model that Wildwood was built on and generally what the purpose of this model was.
Introduction:
Description of the Radburn model:
The Radburn model (Plan of Radburn, NJ, Picture 2) was developed by Alexander Bing, with the help of Henry Wright and Clarence Stein, in the early 20th century (Lee and Stabin-Nesmith, 2001). Lee and Stabin-Nesmith (2001) describe the five components of the Radburn Model as:
(1) the superblock;
(2) specialized roads planned and built for one use instead of all uses;
(3) complete separation of pedestrian and cars;
(4) houses turned around;
(5) park as backbone.
All of these components were aimed at making home life safer for pedestrians and providing people with an unspoiled natural environment to live in. Another reason for this plan design that Lee and Stabin-Nesmith (2001) note is that it can potentially provide a safe place for children to grow up away from busy streets and vehicles. Martin (2001) explains that Wildwood differed from the original Radburn plan in two ways: larger u-shaped blocks and wider back lanes. He argues that these two changes were improvements on the Radburn model because they allowed more usable lane space and provided equal access to the interior park area.
