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.
As of mid-May new urbanist planner and traffic engineer Peter Swift was recovering in Frankfurt, Germany, after suffering a heart attack in Kurdish Iraq, where he went to work last year to help plan the region’s recovery. Swift, who was flown to...
John Chamberlain, a Harvard MBA with a real estate specialty based in Okeechobee, Florida, launched a firm called Urban Technics (www.urban-technics.net) that specializes in financial feasibility of new urban projects. Chamberlain, who participated...
New Town Builders has more than 5,000 traditional neighborhood development (TND) units in the pipeline or under construction in Colorado, including houses in greenfield and grayfield communities, transit-oriented development (TOD), affordable...
Newland Communities LLC has agreed to build a traditional town center in its Clarksburg Town Center development in Montgomery County, Maryland, as part of a settlement that apparently ends a long-running controversy over whether the developer...
The patterns of alley geometry and alley-associated buildings, where they meet the block faces and surrounding streets, may be usefully adjusted in a variety of ways. It is necessary to understand standard configurations, but also how they may be...
A new high-density transit-oriented development in Rockville, Maryland, was compared in The Washington Post to the Piazza Campo dei Fiori in Rome. Rockville Town Square, now under construction, is surrounded by multistory buildings with cafes and...
Montgomery, Alabama, which recently adopted the SmartCode, has now hired Dover, Kohl & Partners of South Miami, Florida, to create a downtown redevelopment plan. Dover Kohl will be paid up to $310,000 out of the general fund, according to a...
In the mountain states, where urban neighborhoods are oases in a landscape of wide-open spaces, “traveling eight hours for a meeting is par for the course,” says Katie Selby, codeveloper of South Main in Buena Vista, CO. So she wasn’t surprised to...
Tom Borrup, a Minneapolis-based consultant in nonprofit management, community development, and philanthropy, has written The Creative Community Builder’s Handbook: How to Transform Communities Using Local Assets, Arts, and Culture. The 224-page...
Milt Rhodes has moved from Miami, Florida, to Raleigh, in his native North Carolina, where he is working part time on projects for Dover, Kohl & Partners, where he previously was employed. Rhodes, who has degrees in architecture, urban planning...
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...