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 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...
Here’s your opportunity to contribute to CNU’s list of top highway-to-boulevard prospects. America’s highway-building era brought elevated freeways that cut huge swaths through our cities, decimating neighborhoods and reducing quality of life for...
Steven Coyle, a long-time new urbanist, has left HDR Town Planning to form his own firm, Town Green, based in Oakland, California. The firm specializes in green planning and form-based codes. The website is www.town-green.com.
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For the USGBC report on vinyl, aluminum, wood, and fiber cement siding, see www.usgbc.org
For the Pharos report, see www.pharosproject.net
For...
Photo 1 caption (on page 1): This streetscape is part of a revitalized downtown for Woodstock, Georgia — one of 15 winners of Charter Awards for 2008. See story on page 6.
Phil Angelides, chairman of the new Canyon-Johnson Urban Communities Fund, says there has been “very substantial progress in changing the thinking about how you design communities” since 1990, when he started developing Laguna West on the southern...
Patrick Square, a traditional neighborhood development, is breaking ground in Clemson, South Carolina, in March. Florida-based developer JMC Communities is seeking EarthCraft Community certification, a standard for sustainable residential...
A 45-acre town center that draws some of its architectural inspiration from a historic Shaker settlement may be built in Colonie, New York, north of Albany. New Loudon Road Associates, a development firm based in Schenectady, hired the New York...
Newly elected Salt Lake City Mayor Ralph Becker announced in January that he wants to improve the city’s planning operation within six months, create a bikeway system, and revise building codes to conform to LEED standards. Becker, a planning...
Michigan new urbanists will soon have a new CNU chapter to help focus their efforts in creating a more walkable, sustainable, neighborhood-based Michigan. On January 23, fifteen CNU members came together in Lansing, Michigan, for the second meeting...
A sense of urgency ran through the Green Architecture and Urbanism Council held in Alexandria, Virginia, and Washington, DC, just after Thanksgiving. Like other councils, this one was an independently organized meeting of peers (many of them CNU...
Mike Watkins, who has headed up the Washington, DC, office of Duany Plater-Zyberk & Company for 19 years, has enrolled in the inaugeral class of a master’s program with an emphasis on classical design. The program is offered jointly by the...