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...
Public officials in Miramar, Florida, recently approved the privately developed portion of the city’s town center. The suburban city bought the 54-acre site for $7.8 million, according to assistant city manager Wazir Ishmael, and hired Torti Gallas...
Alameda, County, California, which encompasses most of East San Francisco Bay, including Oakland, has adopted a “pedestrian master plan” aimed at making streets and sidewalks in unincorporated areas of the 1,444,000-population county safer and more...
Jean-Maurice Moulene has left Moule & Polyzoides Architects and Urbanists to become vice president for development at Concert Realty Partners LLC in Los Angeles. He will use his experience in architecture and development to expand Concert’s...
Doris Goldstein thinks the time has come for new urbanists to consider forming a national organization that “would educate communities about new urbanist principles, provide support and information about community governance, and offer cultural...
Plan title: Parking Lot Guidelines
“Planners cannot significantly improve the design of cities without reforming local parking requirements to emphasize quality over quantity,” Vinit Mukhija and Donald Shoup declare in the Summer 2006 issue of...
By the National Charrette Institute, principal authors Bill Lennertz and Aarin LutzenhiserAmerican Planning Association, 2006, 208 pp., paperback $39.95.For the last two decades at least, new urbanists have been conducting charrettes to create...
“Agriculture is the new golf,” observes Andres Duany.An organic farm has been created at New Town at St. Charles, Missouri, a large traditional neighborhood development outside St. Louis. Developer Whittaker Builders is conducting a nationwide...