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.
Madison, Wisconsin, appears to be on the verge of adopting a comprehensive plan that reverses the trend toward sprawl and instead encourages denser development. Some future projects would fill parking lots or replace single-story shopping centers....
Nora Beck joined the staff of CNU in December 2005 to lend executive support to John Norquist and assistance to CNU’s planning, policy, and design initiatives. While completing her graduate degree in urban planning at the University of Michigan (MUP...
The Orton Family Foundation has launched Scenarios, a semi-annual e-journal that will focus on “local place.” Each issue will highlight a planning theme or idea related to place. The journal is on the web at www.orton.org/scenarios.
The Centre City Development Corporation of San Diego recently hired Nancy Graham, developer and former mayor of West Palm Beach, Florida, as president and chief operating officer. Graham won acclaim for the revitalization of West Palm Beach she...
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...
And don’t forget: mail or ship your Charter Awards submissions by January 31, 2006. Please make sure that entries sent from overseas locations are scheduled to arrive within one week of the shipping deadline. For full awards details, visit www.cnu....
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...