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.
“It’s wonderful to see kids in the town center,” town landscape architect Rip Weaver says of the Mt Laurel development in Shelby County, Alabama. Schoolchildren and their parents are among those breathing life into center’s several blocks, which...
The 2007 Downtown Specific Plan of Ventura, California, which calls for reconnecting the downtown to the beach and for managing parking better, won approval March 19 from the City Council. Five years in the making, the plan calls for adding more...
Since compiling a list of urban investment funds and publishing it in the March issue, New Urban News has learned of three more sources that invest part or all of their money in developments classified as smart growth, new urbanist, or...
The new CNU tradition of presenting Athena Awards to pioneers who have laid the foundation for New Urbanism will continue at CNU XV in Philadelphia with cast-bronze medals going to Robert A.M. Stern, Denise Scott Brown, and Jonathan Barnett. The...
Redevelopment of Naval center in San Diego is successful as a walkable neighborhood but a media report shows it generates no anticipated profits for the city. Developer cites increased tax revenues.��
Buff Chace and Douglas Storrs have won permission to construct two residential neighborhoods that they have long wanted to build adjoining their Mashpee Commons town center on Cape Cod. Over the next seven years, the developers will build 382 units...
The City of New Orleans is poised to invest at least $1.2 billion in reconstruction, possibly beginning as early as this April, recovery chief Edward Blakely announced March 23. “By September, we want to see cranes on the skyline,” Blakely said. The...
The City of Livermore, California approved Livermore Village, a 5.5-acre mixed-use catalyst project in their downtown. Opticos Design designed the plan and architecture in association with Thomas Dolan Architecture for Anderson Pacific, LLC.
The...
A number of recent books have come out that are of interest to new urbanists, including Till We Have Built Jerusalem: Architecture, Urbanism, and the Sacred, published by ISI Books and authored by Philip Bess, professor and director of graduate...
A study in the winter issue of the Journal of American Planning Association (JAPA) tried to determine the effect that three different kinds of development exert on housing values in low-income areas of Chicago.
Alley-loaded and on-street parking can easily make new urbanist neighborhoods more than competitive with sprawl in lower-density situations. In denser center and core zones, though, the parking issue truly comes to the fore. By its basic nature,...
A 54-acre expansion of the downtown of Savannah, Georgia, extends the historic city’s connection to the Savannah River. The plan for Savannah River Landing, initiated by the city, includes a series of squares based on the city’s famous Oglethorpe...