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.
The federal Joint Housing Solutions Group announced in late February that it will evaluate “Gulf Coast-type cottages with front porches” for possible use as disaster housing. Ann Daigle, a new urbanist planner who has been involved in housing...
By late this summer, residents will move into the first of 317 apartments in Voorhees Town Center in southern New Jersey. By next January, the first of 108 condominium units should come onto the market. Accompanying the housing will be 195,000...
Developer Robert Shaw, the former CEO of Columbus Realty Trust who was instrumental in the Uptown District renaissance in Dallas, now plans to build 800 units in Frisco Square in Frisco, Texas. Frisco Square is a 140-acre new urban town center...
After a 17-year struggle, development is underway in New Amherst in Cobourg, Ontario. The new urban community was designed by Duany Plater-Zyberk & Company and is under development by Max LeMarchant and partners. The long saga is recounted by...
Evening Rose Town Center broke ground in Talahassee in February, combining new urban design with sustainable building practices. The 120,000-square-foot Town Center is being building adjacent to the 132-unit Evening Rose residential community, both...
Taking place in Austin, Texas, during the first week in April, the Congress offers the best in planning and development of walkable neighborhoods.
As conventional development models falter — their stripped-down, single-use formulas proving...
Smart Growth BC, based in British Columbia, is developing a walkability index that the organization hopes municipalities throughout Canada will be interested in using. Cheeying Ho, executive director of Smart Growth BC, said the walkability index...
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...