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 Armory Arts and Music Center, a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) corporation in Duluth, Minnesota, is seeking a developer for the city’s mixed-use development district, the first site in Duluth to be developed under a form-based code. The district is an...
In a contentious September charrette, residents of Peterborough, New Hampshire, voiced conflicting opinions on whether a 22-acre property less than half a mile from downtown should be developed with 55 units of mixed-income housing and with new...
The latest flashpoint in national debate over the use of eminent domain is a decision by the Washington, DC, City Council authorizing seizure of the Skyland Shopping Center on Alabama Avenue in the southeast part of the city. If the city and the...
Strong population growth in and around Charlotte is stretching the ability of school districts to accommodate waves of students. “Neighborhoods in this region are growing so fast that new schools are over capacity before construction has even...
CEOs for Cities has produced a publication of some 70 pages that helps people evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of their cities. Titled “City Vitals,” it contains statistical measures intended to help leaders understand their cities’ performance...
Small, hurricane-resistant dwellings are being rolled out by assorted designers and producers, using five different construction methods.
Joanna Lombard, a professor of architecture at the University of Miami, has worked with students and others on how to apply New Urbanism’s principles to medical districts in Miami and Memphis, and now she is providing ideas for the Bon Secours...
Every human settlement, from wilderness to metropolis, contains structures standing out in their singularity in that place. Others in the same locale recede from individual prominence. The latter do so either by being diffident in their...
Hedgewood Properties is achieving strong sales with two traditional neighborhood developments (TNDs) in the Atlanta region, the company reports. Vickery, a 600-unit new town with 117,000 square feet of commercial in South Forsyth County, is two...
Deadline for comments on “Context Sensitive Design for Urban Thoroughfares in Walkable Communities,” the manual coauthored by the Institute for Transportation Engineers and the Congress for the New Urbanism has been extended to December 31. It can...
Maryland is experimenting with a private initiative aimed at reducing sprawl, now that the Smart Growth and Neighborhood Conservation program launched by Governor Parris Glendening in 1997 has lost momentum under his successor, Robert L. Ehrlich.
Mixed-income housing should be encouraged around the 300 transit stations in metropolitan New York as part of a strategy to moderate the region’s exceptionally high housing prices, says a new report from the Citizens Housing and Planning Council and...