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.
Fourteen homebuilders are at work in Oshara Village, a New Mexico development that combines New Urbanism and resource-saving features to reduce stress on the environment. Developer Alan Hoffman says his 470-acre project, just south of Santa Fe, uses...
The latest edition of “Emerging Trends in Real Estate” identifies transit-oriented development as a “best bet” for investors. The annual report published by the Urban Land Institute and Pricewaterhouse Coopers says that in light of traffic...
The US Green Building Council has compiled an on-line catalog of green building strategies that have been used in LEED-certified projects. The Innovation & Design Credit Catalog is available at www.usgbc.org.
Hank Dittmar, chief executive of the Prince’s Foundation for the Built Environment, received the Seaside Prize during a ceremony in Seaside, Florida. Dittmar, who stepped down as chairman of the board of CNU this April, was honored for “significant...
After years of finding themselves on opposite sides of disagreements about street design approvals, new urbanists and members of the fire service profession gathered in Austin just before the start of CNU XVI and discovered they have more in common...
Daniel Parolek, Karen Parolek, and Paul Crawford have identified nine errors that people commonly make when designing and applying form-based codes (FBCs).
Industry campaign boasts improved color and variety, but critics link vinyl to dioxin and environmental harm.In the past ten months, the Vinyl Siding Institute has co-sponsored a Seaside Institute program in Atlanta, a SmartCode seminar in Miami,...
The City Council in Gulfport, Mississippi voted in January to hire Duany Plater-Zyberk & Co. (DPZ) to guide redevelopment of many of its city-owned properties. Before the month was over, Andres Duany arrived and led a 10-day conference on how to...
California New Urbanism pioneer Phil Angelides announced in February that he will head the newly established Canyon-Johnson Urban Communities Fund, which will buy and improve more than $2 billion of urban apartment complexes throughout the US.
Founder and former CEO of Post Properties John Williams has teamed with Cadim, a Quebec firm, on a buyout offer of Atlanta-based Post valued at around $2 billion. “The Cadim/Williams group proposal marks Williams’ latest attempt to regain control of...
Developer Robert Daigle, a TND pioneer in Louisiana with the highly successful River Ranch development, has proposed a new neighborhood on 125 acres in Lafayette, Lousiana, called the Boustany Property. Daigle is partnering with Steve Oubre of...
The US House of representatives has approved the reauthorization of the HOPE VI public housing redevelopment program, maintaining provisions for mixed-use and mixed-income housing and calling for green building practices. The House bill calls for...