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 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...
Ocean Springs development runs counter to a spate of bad development in Mississippi.Cottage Square, a model cluster of new urbanist cottages that was planned more than two years ago for Ocean Springs, Mississippi, as a response to Hurricane Katrina...
New York designer Marianne Cusato is author of a 52-page publication, The Value of Design, which examines urbanism, traditional architecture, and building materials. Written for general readers, the full-color publication was produced by James...
The Warminster, Pennsylvania, Planning Commission unanimously approved a proposed 16-acre transit-oriented development, according to The Intelligencer newspaper. The plan, by developers J.G. Petrucci Co. of Asbury, New Jersey, will go to the board...
Metropolitan Baltimore is about to try the “Cool Spots” method of reducing greenhouse-gas emissions. Criterion Planners of Portland, Oregon, will conduct three “digital charrettes” in September and October with the planning directors of the City of...
Milt Rhodes in Raleigh, North Carolina, who in 2006 established New Urban Water Works to develop innovative stormwater management plans for communities, recently started another business. His Carolina Cottage Company designs and builds very small...
Some new urbanists are embracing the techniques of a people-oriented firm called Live Work Learn Play.Why do some new urban town centers fail to thrive?Is it because they’re not designed with the right sizes of shops in the right locations? Is it...
A study in Raleigh, North Carolina, area shows why fire response is slower and more costly in the suburbs. The city looked at two fire stations in historic areas with street grids and three stations in the emerging suburbs, examining how many...
The Financial Times reported July 18 on a sure sign that sprawl is on the defensive, at least for now: Some developers are selling outlying land back to agricultural interests, having concluded that the market for constructing houses on it has...
The Office of Sustainable Development in Portland, Oregon, has decided that one of the best ways to cut down on greenhouse-gas emissions is by fostering what it calls the “20-minute neighborhood.”
“Hybrid Coding” is explored in the May issue of the American Planning Association’s periodical Zoning Practice. Author Arista Strungys, a planner at Camiros Ltd., writes that replacing a conventional zoning code with a form-based code may be too...