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.
Two municipalities are showing how communities can restrict “formula retail” businesses that some contend undermine the character of established shopping districts.
Last year San Francisco adopted Planning Code Section 703.3, a provision that...
Peter Swift, who has operated a New Urbanism-oriented transportation planning firm in Longmont, Colorado, is going to Iraq as director of town planning for a firm that will carry out large development efforts in the Kurdish northern section of the...
By Joanna Lombard Rizzoli, 2005, 176 pp., hardcover $49.95. Considering the enormous impact Andres Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk have made on town planning and urban design, it’s curious that so little has been said about the architecture...
The growing municipality of Pike Road outside of Montgomery, Alabama, approved in August a version of the SmartCode that will operate parallel to current zoning. The code was approved pending an annexation of The Waters, a large-scale TND in the...
Peachtree City, a suburban Georgia, municipality with 31,500 residents, has successfully promoted golf carts as an alternative mode of transportation. Founded in 1959, the municipality has 23 square miles and 90 miles of multiuse paths. More than 10...
CNU welcomes the addition of several new task force co-chairs, a group of new leaders with fresh ideas and talents for the task forces.
Real estate consultant William Tucker brings an impressive 20 years of new urbanist development experience to...
An extensive study of 4-lane to 3-lane road conversions in Iowa demonstrated a 25 percent reduction in accident frequency and a 19 percent reduction in crash rate. The 23-year study was by Iowa State University and Iowa DOT. See www.dot.state.ia.us/...
In the works for nearly two years, a manual to help people implement the SmartCode was scheduled for release in early October. Titled SmartCode Manual and subtitled The Complete SmartCode, Annotated Version 7.5, it will be downloadable for free and...
Bus rapid transit varies from one metropolitan area to another, but generally has the following characteristics: First, BRT vehicles enjoy priority treatment, usually through a dedicated busway and also through preferential treatment at traffic...
Frank Greene of Looney Ricks Kiss Architects has been appointed “town architect” for Rosemary Beach, a 105-acre new urban development about eight miles east of Seaside, Florida. The project will contain approximately 700 units when completed around...
By Douglas E. MorrisFeeling lonely, depressed, victimized by rudeness, and threatened with violence? You may be suffering from the physical breakdown of American communities, according to Douglas Morris.
New downtown hotels and expansions of existing hotels are being talked about in Providence, RI, where CNU’s 14th annual conference will be held June 1-4, 2006. On narrow Westminster Street, Providence developer and antiques connoisseur Stanley Weiss...