Archives
Welcome to the archives of Better Cities & Towns, a publication founded by Robert Steuteville as New Urban News in 1996. This archive holds two decades of the best news and analysis on compact, mixed-use growth and development, from 1996 to 2015.
Tysons Corner, one of America’s best-known, automobile-dependent edge cities, would become much more of a real city if a plan approved by the Fairfax County (Virginia) Board of Supervisors is carried out. In late September the supervisors endorsed a...
The Council for European Urbanism (CEU) and the Congress for New Urbanism (CNU) are launching a joint effort to counter the effects of global warming.
A core line from the Charter of the New Urbanism states, “We are committed to reestablishing the relationship between the art of building and the making of community through citizen-based participatory planning and design.” To that end, CNU is...
Its impact will partly depend on yet-to-be-determined greenhouse gas reduction targets for new development.
Rendering 1 caption (on page 1): An avenue in the downtown of Verano, a new urban development planned in San Antonio, Texas, is rendered below. See story on page 8 and commentary on page 2.
One of every five American households will contain at least one disabled resident by 2050, according to a report from Stanley Smith and Stefan Rayer of the University of Florida and Eleanor A. Smith, executive director of Concrete Change, a national...
General Growth Properties (GGP) submitted a plan to Howard County, Maryland, officials Oct. 1 that calls for building 5,500 townhouses and apartments and 1 million square feet of retail space during the next three decades in and around Columbia Town...
The first three homes at Brytan, a new 150-acre traditional neighborhood in Gainesville, Florida, have earned LEED Silver status by the US Green Building Council. According to planner Duany Plater-Zyberk & Company the homes are the first in...
CNU Board Chair Ray Gindroz has retired from the Board of Directors of Urban Design Associates in Pittsburgh and is now principal emeritus and senior consultant to the firm. He continues to work with UDA on projects in Norfolk, Virginia; Boca Raton...
A two-year study in New England found that when uses are mixed, 24 percent less parking is needed.
Norman Garrick and Wesley Marshall of the University of Connecticut examined six centers in Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Vermont. Three were...
A Reuters article in July reported on how a family of four has saved money by moving to the Stapleton development in Denver, Colorado. This has allowed the family to get by with one car. “Resident Evelyn Baker says Stapleton appeals to a ‘cheapskate...
Cranberry Township, near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, approved a traditional neighborhood development (TND) ordinance drawn up by Thomas Comitta Associates of West Chester, Pennsylvania. The Cranberry code allows for three types of TND with gross...