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 Green Building Council has established a Web site called Build Green Schools, offering guidance on why and how to construct schools that reduce energy consumption and treat the natural environment well. The site is www.buildgreenschools.org....
Laura Hall has joined with Robert Alminana to form Hall Alminana, an urban design firm with offices in San Francisco and Santa Rosa, California. Laura Hall’s previous partner, Lois Fisher, now practices under the name Fisher Town Design in Santa...
Pioneer emphasized architecture’s role in “perpetual rebirth of cities.”��
David Lewis, the pioneering educator and founder of the firm Urban Design Associates, became the fifth recipient of CNU’s Athena Medal for lifetime achievement in a November...
“Complete Streets” movement presses a growing number of cities to plan for multimodal transportation.In 2003, bicyclists intent on obtaining safer routes for cycling concluded that they needed a slogan — one that would communicate their goal to the...
A US group devoted to traditional architecture and urbanism made its debut at the Traditional Building Show in New Orleans this October. The new organization — the American affiliate of the International Network for Traditional Building,...
Landmark buildings can more than pay for themselves through weddings and other functions.Landmark buildings can more than pay for themselves through weddings and other functions.
Toll Brothers, which builds houses and apartments in 22 states, reported in November that customers backed out of purchase contracts at the highest rate the company has ever seen. While most conventional developments received ratings of “F,” “F-...
The Texas Transportation Commission, which oversees the Texas Department of Transportation, appointed an informal urban thoroughfare team that includes John Norquist, CEO of the Congress for the New Urbanism, Scott Polikov of the Gateway Planning...
Three-fourths of Americans believe that being smarter about development and improving public transportation are better long-term solutions for reducing traffic congestion than building new roads, according to a survey sponsored by the National...
James Howard Kunstler appears throughout “Radiant City,” a recently released film that that The New York Times described as “an acerbic position paper on the cultural damage done by postwar architectural fads.” Reviewer Matt Zoller Seitz said the...
Ellen Greenberg has a one-year appointment as visiting practitioner at the University of California-Davis Sustainable Transportation Center. She left Freedman Tung & Bottomley in Berkeley, but remains involved in planning for Ventura, California...