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.
Scott Polikov of Gateway Planning Group in Austin, Texas, is joining the board of directors of the National Civic League. He was involved in producing a master plan and form-based code for transit-oriented development in the core of a 2,000-acre...
Despite their country’s colder climate, Canadians are three times as likely as Americans to hop on a bicycle to go to work. Even in the frigid Yukon Territory, more than twice the percentage of the population can be seen biking to work as in...
New urban development must make case at state high court.I’On, a lauded traditional neighborhood development (TND) in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, faces continued opposition from town officials. The latest hurdle for the 243-acre, 759-unit...
The City of Miami, Florida, is working with Duany Plater-Zyberk (DPZ) of Miami on a complete overhaul of its zoning code. The new code will be a modified version of the SmartCode. The city’s effort is called Miami 21. In a parallel effort, the city...
For workers driving to their jobs, Atlanta is America’s most expensive metropolitan area, at least as measured by the cost of gasoline, says a study by Sperling’s Best Places. Because of long distances between home and work and the region’s serious...
Roughly 90 percent of Oregon’s 241 cities have changed their laws to limit cul-de-sacs, The Wall Street Journal reported June 2. In an article on efforts throughout the US to discourage cul-de-sacs, the Journal said “some traffic experts say the...
Katrina Cottages by Marianne Cusato and others get eight pages of text and photos in the July/August issue of Cottage Living magazine. The diminutive dwellings are presented as “the first step for long-term housing to replace the approximately 99,...
Discussion at CNU XIV’s closing session affirms membership’s respect for the Charter
After a one-year hiatus, the subject of supplementing the Charter of the New Urbanism was back on the program at the Congress in Providence.
Three months in advance of anticipated initial home settlements, a factory is built in the area planned as the final phase of the subdivision. The home assembly plant is typically sized for volume of output, recognizing that some capacity increase...
Lacking a city-initiated redevelopment plan, the Gentilly section of New Orleans took its future into its own hands in late April and sponsored a charrette led by Miami architect-planner Andres Duany. The well-attended eight-day program produced a...
A citizens’ effort in the Takoma neighborhood of Washington, DC, and adjacent Takoma Park, Maryland, highlights what may become an issue at a number of transit stations across the nation: how to balance development against the need for affordability...
A 15-member Charrette Stewardship Group, chaired by Pam Kramer of the Duluth Local Initiatives Support Corp. (LISC), is working on promoting and implementing ideas from a charrette the University of Miami’s Knight Program in Community Building...