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.
Torti Gallas tells how it incorporated sustainability traits into its projects.“Is New Urbanism inherently sustainable? Only partly,” says Tom Gallas, partner and chief business strategist at Torti Gallas and Partners. That’s why the Silver Spring,...
Out of the Ivory Tower and Into the Streets By Judith Rodin Review by Philip Langdon
Planners from Dover, Kohl & Partners of Coral Gables, Florida, spent more than a week in the Spring Hill area of Mobile, Alabama, working with residents, city planners, and traffic engineers on changes to three major intersections. The Press-...
Crosland LLC, developer of mixed-use communities such as Birkdale Village in Huntersville, North Carolina, has teamed up with Northwestern Mutual to create the Southeastern Investment Fund. The new fund is expected to have $225 million for land...
The City of Duluth, Minnesota, has received a $170,000 grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and a $40,000 grant from the Minnesota Lake Superior Coastal Program to help create a new Unified Development Code. The code will update the...
Rather than see the school board in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, replace the city’s five neighborhood elementary schools with one mega-school containing 1,800 students, Tom Hylton helped launch a campaign that defeated five incumbent school board...
After 13 years as New Mexico’s de facto state planner, Ken Hughes has moved to a new position as clean energy specialist in the state’s Energy Department. “Smart growth is an area I brought over with me, so I continue to keep a handle on the subject...
“The miracle of New Urbanism is its simplicity. [Andres] Duany has designed whole towns under the movement’s principles — like Seaside, Fla., or Kentlands, Md. — and to walk their streets is to be transported back decades, before McMansions and SUVs...
Andres Duany identifies four main target groups and their outlooks.
To produce sustainable buildings and communities, it’s important to know who would like to live in them. Andres Duany identifies four target markets, which differ in outlook and...
Edited by Timothy Mennel, Jo Steffens, and Christopher KlemekMunicipal Art Society and Princeton Architectural Press, 2007, 64 pp., $17.95 paperback
The City of Ithaca, New York, and Cornell University have jointly hired urban planners Goody Clancy of Boston to write design guidelines for Collegetown, a historic mixed-use center adjacent to the university. Code Studio of Austin, Texas, was also...
Ben Starrett at the Funders’ Network says his organization is putting together a funders working group that will focus on climate change, land use, and transportation. “Lots of climate funders are working on various pieces of the carbon emissions...