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.
York Township, Pennsylvania, approved a traditional neighborhood development (TND) ordinance in 2005 and now the municipality has five TND projects proposed, all adjacent and connected to one another, according to Will Selman, a new urbanist planner...
The Arlington County Board in northern Virginia has approved two new projects that are expected to help revitalize the Columbia Pike by following the Pike’s three-year-old form-based code. One project is Penrose Square, which will include a Giant...
CNU board treasurer Stephanie Bothwell has been selected as the second Orton Family Foundation Fellow. This relatively new fellowship program supports land-use innovation efforts in an attempt to encourage new approaches to the land use planning...
The City of Moss Point, Mississippi, adopted the SmartCode and the plan from the Mississippi Renewal Forum for the redevelopment of downtown in October, a year after the forum. The adoption allows the city to apply for funds to move the city hall...
Governing named Ventura, California, City Manager Rick Cole one of the magazine’s “public officials of the year,” saying he “has excelled in both elected and appointed roles, promoting innovative mixed-use development that reflects community values...
Table title: Suburban vs. Urban Energy Use
A few places in California have started experimenting with “traffic-reducing housing” — residences that are made available first, or at lower cost, to people who work nearby or who pledge to commute by...
The process the City of Cambridge used to establish a planning framework for substantial development in eastern Cambridge, including the NorthPoint project, makes up a chapter of Douglas Porter’s recent book, Breaking the Development Logjam: New...
A 160-acre, 1,000-unit traditional neighborhood development (TND) was planned in early September for a quarter-section greenfield site in Omaha, Nebraska. The organic nature of the block structure created by planner Placemakers and lead urban...
They’ve been called “mortgage helpers in the sky,” and they are a new twist on the granny flat. They are “flex suites,” or condominiums that are designed to be subdivided. Households can close off a portion of the unit, designed as a small...
At the Providence Congress, a talent-packed panel of former jury chairs or multiyear jurors of CNU’s Charter Awards gave audience members a behind-the-scenes look at the selection process for New Urbanism’s most coveted awards. Stephanie Bothwell,...
Slowly but surely, local governments in the Syracuse, New York, area are implementing ideas that Duany Plater-Zyberk & Company (DPZ) introduced during an October 1999 charrette. The DPZ-prepared Settlement Plan for Onondaga County has still not...
Transit-oriented development project in Oakland highlights questions of how much retail to build and how to handle parking.Fruitvale Village in Oakland, California, has become a reluctant symbol of the difficulties that transit-oriented development...