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.
An elegant $75 million mixed-use development designed principally by New Haven architect Robert Orr has been tucked into a difficult 4.74-acre site in the Southport section of Fairfield, Connecticut. Houses in Federal, Italianate, and Greek Revival...
An article in the September issue about the Tornagrain project in Scotland, being designed by Duany Plater-Zyberk & Co. (DPZ), contained two errors. According to DPZ, the project encompasses 550 acres, not 350 acres, and the managing director of...
Wal-Mart appears likely to use some new urbanist ideas when the company replaces its hurricane-destroyed store in Pass Christian, Mississippi, says Mayor Chip McDermott. Mayor McDermott told The Sun Herald in late September that Wal-Mart is taking...
Gulfport, Mississippi, expects to spend more than $3 million to begin a harbor project that would include a marina, a promenade, and an area for restaurant and retail businesses, in keeping with a plan devised by Wallace, Roberts & Todd (WRT)....
Sunland Park, New Mexico, is hoping to use new urbanist principles to plan a new downtown district at the border crossing to Juarez, Mexico. Veronica Rosales, director of community development for the 14,250-person municipality, says that “despite...
CNU’s newly formed Visitability & Accessibility Task Force will focus on raising awareness among new urbanists about the importance of visitability and accessibility and raising awareness among accessibility advocates of the benefits of...
Mark A. Benedict and Edward T. McMahon are authors of a new book, Green Infrastructure: Linking Landscapes and Communities, that discusses how to plan, protect, and manage natural and restored lands, including those along greenways. The 300-page, $...
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...
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...