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.
For all their success nationally and internationally, Andres Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk have yet to design a traditional neighborhood development (TND) in their home base, Miami-Dade County, and get it built. Their first success on that score...
Did you know it’s safer to live in cities or old suburbs than at the outer edge of metropolitan development? A book by William H. Lucy and David L. Phillips
Ankeny, Iowa, a community of 36,000 a few miles north of Des Moines, unveiled plans in August for development of Prairie Trail, a 1,031-acre project that is expected to be one of the largest new urban endeavors in the Midwest. The site, most of...
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.
New urbanists are working to establish a design and development center in Mississippi that would help the state’s Gulf Coast communities rebuild wisely.
The center’s focus would be on “helping communities work with the development industry to...
Dhiru Thadani, a Washington, DC, architect and member of the CNU board, will lead the planning for what is probably the biggest educational project on the planet — the building of a brand-new university in India for 100,000 students. Thadani, a...
Well over 200 homes are built or under construction in Norton Commons, a traditional neighborhood development outside of Louisville, Kentucky. The town center for the project is also under construction, with four live-work units, and three mixed-use...
Well-executed new urban projects often spawn other projects nearby, and a new example of this tendency is in Birmingham, Alabama. Chimney Rock, a town designed in July and on a fast track for development, is located down the road from Mt Laurel, a...
A mixed-use infill project broke ground in Providence, Rhode Island, designed by new urbanist Donald Powers. Two buildings on a vacant lot on Douglas Avenue will include a total of 13 residential units above 5,500 square feet of retail. The...
Fourteen states have enacted visitability legislation, and at least 24 cities have modified their building codes to make new houses accessible to disabled visitors, the American Planning Association newsletter Zoning Practice reported in an April...
Keith Covington has launched Third Coast Design Studio, a Nashville-based planning, urban design, and architecture practice. Covington formerly directed the Nashville Planning Department’s Design Studio.