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.
Building for Life: Designing and Understanding the Human-Nature Connection, a new book by Professor Stephen R. Kellert of the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, examines people’s need for elements of nature, whether in cities or in...
Lolly Barnes, who lives in Biloxi and participated in the Mississippi Renewal Forum, will run the Gulf Coast field office of the National Trust for Historic Preservation in partnership with the Mississippi Heritage Trust, working on restoration of...
Two large-scale traditional neighbor-
hood developments (TNDs) are moving forward near the Gulf Coast in Mississippi, taking advantage of a high demand for housing in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. The first of their kind in the region, the TNDs...
The Trust for Sustainable Development has started con-
structing an 8,000-acre resort community in Baja California that features advanced environmental techniques and New Urbanism. Duany Plater-Zyberk & Co. planned the Mexican development,...
The huge Mesa del Sol development in Albuquerque may soon start its first building project, a 90,000 sq. ft. light industrial and office building for the photovoltaic cell manufacturer Advent Solar, which hopes to employ 1,000 people there by 2010....
A new Sierra Club report, “Building Better: A Guide to America’s Best New Development Projects,” profiles a dozen projects across the country, most of them featuring many traits associated with New Urbanism. Among them are the Southside neighborhood...
Leyland Alliance, a Warwick, New York-based developer, has established an affiliate organization called Live Work Learn Play LLP, which will focus on establishing shopping, dining, hospitality, and other commercial components in neighborhood and...
Controversy has been raging along the Gulf Coast over plans by the Mississippi Department of Transportation (MDOT) to build a 128-foot-wide highway bridge between Biloxi and Ocean Springs. Hurricane Katrina knocked the decking off the Highway 90...
An article by Andrew Nelson in the November-December National Geographic Traveler pays this tribute to pedestrian-friendly traits, as found in Philadelphia: “One of Philadelphia’s greatest assets is of a low-tech variety — its sidewalks. A city...
New Urban News won in the “General Excellence: Newsletters” category in Utne magazine’s 2005 Independent Press awards. The announcement was made in Utne’s January 2006 issue.
Chad Emerson will teach a course on federal, state, and local laws and regulations governing smart-growth planning and development, beginning Jan. 12 at Faulkner University’s Jones School of Law in Montgomery, Alabama. Emerson, a Faulkner professor...
Hammond’s Ferry, a 200-acre traditional neighborhood development (TND) now under construction in North Augusta, South Carolina, builds upon a plan that James U. Jackson, the original developer of North Augusta, set forth in the 1890s and never...