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.
Urban designer and architect Bill Dennis of Providence, Rhode Island, created a plan for a 160-acre traditional neighborhood development in Baton Rouge, Lousiana, in July. The plan includes a main street, library, post office, Montessori school, and...
Fairfax County, Virginia, has issued a request for proposals for redesigning one of the nation’s most famous, or notorious, edge cities — Tysons Corner. The consultant selected by the county would help a business-civic group known as the Tysons Task...
Brent Toderian, who has worked with new urbanist projects as a planner for the City of Calgary, has moved to Vancouver to take the Director of Planning position. As the Vancouver Globe and Mail reports, he will be taking over from the city’s “...
Proposals for planting rows of trees along the roads — a traditional technique for shaping pleasing public spaces — are often opposed by transportation engineers, who contend that a wide travel corridor, free of obstacles, is needed to protect the...
Public workshops lead toward a statewide vision of the future, while 15 teams work on planning New Orleans.
Andres Duany hopes to help revive the art of village-building in Scotland. Duany Plater-Zyberk & Co. has been commissioned by Moray Estates Development Company to help plan a new Highland community containing about 5,000 houses, along with shops...
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has cleared the site in Pass Christian, Mississippi, where its store was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina, and has hired consultants to study a proposal for constructing a “Wal-Mart village” there, says local architect Robin Riley...
In a region with numerous examples of mixed-use town centers and TNDs completed, Ayrsley in Charlotte, North Carolina, is taking off. Planned for a total of 2,000 residential units, 1.8 million square feet of offices, 400,000 square feet of retail,...
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...