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 Poland Public Library in Poland, Ohio, designed by Robert A. Mastriana of the 4M Company (see Sept. 2004 New Urban News), is one of 80 libraries in the US and Canada that will be featured in Heart of the Community: The Libraries We Love. The $49...
After coordinating more than 85 charrettes for Duany Plater-Zyberk & Co. in the past several years, Debra Hempel has joined the architectural, engineering, and consulting firm HDR. From an office in Tampa, Hempel will coordinate HDR’s design...
The Arnold Fund builds new urbanist projects in Georgia and eyes the ‘Katrina Cottage’ model.The Arnold Fund builds new urbanist projects in Georgia and eyes the ‘Katrina Cottage’ model.The Arnold Fund is taking the lead in developing two sizable...
The Peerless Development Group has begun converting a 40 percent vacant shopping mall in Forest Acres, South Carolina, into the core of a development that may eventually contain a network of streets and sidewalks, street-oriented retail, a restored...
Dan Camp was elected mayor of Starkville, Mississippi, a college town with 22,000 people, in June of 2005. In the last year, Camp has made progress fulfilling a campaign promise to keep the police station and city courthouse downtown. Camp ran for...
Laguna West, an early 1990s new urbanist development 12 miles south of downtown Sacramento, recently became a point of contention in the June 6 primary for governor of California. State Treasurer Philip Angelides, now running for the Democratic...
The Vermont legislature approved a bill establishing a “growth centers” program, which encourages development and rehabilitation in existing downtowns and village centers. The legislation expands financial incentives for property owners in centers...
The Knight Foundation has chosen the investment collaborative organization Living Cities to help guide redevelopment in the eastern section of Biloxi, Mississippi, where the homes of many low-income and minority families were destroyed or badly...
The Urban Land Institute has released a 22-page booklet titled “Principles for Temporary Communities,” based on lessons learned from the Gulf Coast hurricanes of 2005. It includes a new strategy from FEMA’s Joint Housing Solutions Center that calls...
Howard Katz, a former Knight Fellow in Community Building who worked for the Cuyahoga County treasurer’s office in Cleveland and the American Architectural Foundation in Washington, DC, will be a member of the “founding faculty” of the Charlotte...
Kenneth Hitchens was identified as being “of the Baldwin Park development” in the April 2006 article “New charrette system may bring more production builders into TNDs.” Hitchens, an independent architect, is a resident of Baldwin Park in Orlando,...
The Katrina Cottage is one of the most versatile ideas that have come out of the new urbanist Gulf Coast charrettes.