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.
During the Mississippi Renewal Forum, retail specialist Robert Gibbs, architect Victor Dover, urban designer Laura Hall, and CNU President John Norquist all tried to persuade Wal-Mart to make the retailer’s next store in Pass Christian, Mississippi...
Students, retailers, and office tenants have begun moving into a $130 million mixed-use project known as South Campus Gateway, on High Street next to the Ohio State University campus in Columbus.
St. Lucie County Commissioners approved the North County Charrette Plan, which applies traditional neighborhood design to a 28-square-mile area (see the September 2005 issue for more details). After a 3-2 vote in October, commissioners sent the plan...
Charlotte, North Carolina, is in the process of adopting connectivity requirements, including deciding how long the city’s blocks can be. The government is “getting tremendous pressure from the development community on the block dimension issues,”...
Milton Grenfell, principal in Grenfell Architecture, has moved his practice from Charlotte, North Carolina, to Washington, DC. Grenfell is known for his advocacy of Classicism and criticism of Modernism.
Designs from less than 300 square feet on up aim to reinforce South Mississippi’s character.
The Gulf Coast of Mississippi needs to gird itself against a flood of mass-produced houses that have little in common with the homes built in the region...
By Jonathan Levine RFF Press, 2005, 223 pp., paperback $26.95Many new urbanists agree that the primary barrier to developing more compact, mixed-use, transit-oriented communities is zoning. Yet new urbanists face an uphill battle to change codes —...
Prince Charles accepted the National Building Museum’s Vincent Scully Prize Nov. 3 in Washington, DC, where he declared his admiration for “traditional urbanism.” Scully, the longtime Yale professor and architectural historian, presented the award...
Daniel Cary, who went from ecologist in the Everglades to new urbanist planner in West Palm Beach, Florida, and elsewhere, received the Seaside Prize Oct. 14 at a ceremony in Seaside, Florida.
The Congress for the New Urbanism is asking for Charter Award entries. Submissions are due by January 31. See www.cnu.org for more details. u
An urban renovator advocates New Urbanism, but the “model project” leaves some cold.
Poor New Orleans. A city full of character, and characters, it’s had continual trouble marshaling a response since Hurricane Katrina.
In mid-November the...
For the first time, the Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA) is proposing building emergency shelters in a neighborhood form that could evolve into permanent settlements over the years. Experience with Hurricane Andrew shows that...