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.
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.
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...
A first portion of Classical Architecture: A Handbook of the Tradition for Today has been posted on the website of the Institute of Classical Architecture & Classical America. That section, “The Elements of Classical Architecture,” will be...
Wide traffic lanes may make traveling more dangerous, rather than less. Eric Dumbaugh at Texas A&M, who has studied road design and the frequency of accidents, has found that making traffic lanes wider than 11 feet does not improve safety....
The movement toward eliminating excessive parking requirements scored a victory this summer when San Francisco adopted new regulations for downtown. Mayor Gavin Newsom signed an ordinance that gets rid of all minimum parking requirements for...
Developers Frank and Trey Starkey of New Port Richey, Florida, are working on a new traditional neighborhood development (TND). Having sold a large part of Longleaf, their first TND — to Crosland Inc., which will complete the final two neighborhoods...
A 19-acre mixed-use development is being proposed on Lady’s Island in Beaufort, South Carolina, across the Beaufort River from downtown. Aslan Development Group of Louisville, Kentucky, has hired LandPlan Partnership of Hilton Head to do the urban...
An article on msn.com in early August contended that consistently high gas prices will have a rising influence on house buyers’ decisions. The article, “Could Rising Gas Prices Kill the Suburbs?,” calculated that at $3/gallon gas, a 50-mile commute...
Copyright © 2006 Andres Duany, Michael Morrissey, and Patrick Pinnell. Libraries, universities, institutions, and businesses may not circulate, hire, print, use as a teaching aid, or reproduce this article and/or images without the prior written...
The City of Germantown, near Memphis, Tennessee, hired the Lawrence Group of Davidson, North Carolina, to create a smart growth plan in during a charrette scheduled for September, according to an eyewitnessnews.com report.