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.
Architect Victor Deupi has taken a leave of absence from teaching at the University of Notre Dame’s architecture school to become Arthur Ross Director of Education at the Institute of Classical Architecture & Classical America in New York.
The Florida Chapter of the Congress for the New Urbanism has released a new edition of Guidebook to New Urbanism in Florida. A review of this publication will be in the June 2006 issue. See www.cnuflorida.org.
The bulk of this year’s Charter Awards from the Congress for the New Urbanism honor projects on redeveloped sites — contradicting the persistent notion that New Urbanism is mainly about building on virgin land at the suburban fringe.
Other Mississippi communities move forward with form-based codes and plans.
By the American Planning AssociationJohn Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2006, 736 pp., hardcover $199.
The idea of calling prefab new urbanist-designed dwellings in Louisiana “Gulf Coast Cottages” has been put to rest no more than two months after it was first raised. Andres Duany now says “Katrina” is the brand that will be used for all the cottages...
In one of the largest transit-oriented developments in Maryland’s Montgomery County in years, the county has approved a plan that would transform an industrial zone around the Shady Grove Metro station into an urban center with office buildings,...
The head of the District of Columbia Council has introduced a bill to allow developers to build housing, offices, and shops alongside or on top of new schools, libraries, and other public facilities. Chairman Linda W. Cropp sees this as a way to get...
The SmartCode & Manual, which is having such a significant impact on redevelopment of the Gulf Coast, is now in hard copy print for the first time — published by New Urban Publications, publisher of New Urban News. The SmartCode & Manual is...
The Katrina Cottage, a 308 sq. ft. prototype dwelling designed by Marianne Cusato of New York, has received rave reviews since being displayed in mid-January at the International Builders’ Show in Orlando.
Adelegation of new urbanists and Mississippians returned from Wal-Mart headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas, in mid-January with a promise that the discount retailer would participate in a charrette writing a SmartCode plan for a section of Pass...
Automobile trips generated by high-density, infill developments served by transit may be up to 90 percent lower than industry standards would suggest, according to experts at Nelson/Nygaard in San Francisco. Nelson/Nygaard developed software that...