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.
A Guide to Impact Fees and Housing Affordability, a new book from Island Press, makes a strong case for basing impact fees on development density and on the square footage of houses. As density goes down and square footage rises, service costs go up...
Five years after it was published in the US by W.W. Norton, the well-received Urban Design Handbook: Techniques and Working Methods by Urban Design Associates of Pittsburgh has been translated into Chinese and will soon make its debut in the world’s...
High gas prices are resulting in an important health benefit — the plummeting of US automobile fatalities. The Associated Press reports a 9 percent drop in motor vehicle deaths overall through May of 2008 compared with the first five months of 2007...
Since the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991 (ISTEA) helped to put a modicum of balance in federal highway and public transportation funding, planning and transportation advocates have had the opportunity every six years to...
Victor Deupi stepped down in August after more than three years as Arthur Ross Director of Education at the Institute of Classical Architecture & Classical America. He returned to full-time architectural practice and is collaborating with Pier...
Designs of three LEED-ND projects in Beijing feature green technology, but the rating system doesn’t guarantee good urban design.The Beijing Olympic Village, containing 22 six-story buildings and 20 nine-story buildings on 160 acres, won a Gold...
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...
The Congress for the New Urbanism has created a six-minute video on the importance of urban design in fighting climate change. The video, A Convenient Remedy to the Inconvenient Truth, uses examples to show how the choice of a walkable, mixed-use,...
The Journal of Health Politics, Policy, and Law published a special June issue called “Active Living, the Built Environment, and the Policy Agenda,” which features articles on the impact that biking, trails, land-use policy, school planning, and...
New York City is planning to introduce variable parking meter rates in parts of Manhattan and Brooklyn, beginning in October. On certain congested corridors, the city will double the rates charged by the meters during heavy traffic periods. The goal...