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.
Combining the strengths of several disciplines, the University of Michigan this year will offer a new certificate program in real estate development that focuses on building well-designed, sustainable, communities. Christopher Leinberger, a...
The Urban Land Institute is going nationwide with a program that should make it easier for smart growth and new urban projects to win the governmental approvals they need.
Within the past three years, ULI has taken the lead in forming two regional...
Mission Meridian Village, a collection of 67 varied housing units along the Gold Line light-rail tracks in South Pasadena, California, opened in June and is expected to be completed and fully occupied by September.
The benefits promised by New Urbanism spring directly from its emphasis on walking as the main way of moving through the world. Where places are made genuinely walkable, private vehicle mileage likely will be reduced and public transit will...
The first houses are under construction at Villebois, a TND in Wilsonville, Oregon. Developer Costa Pacific Homes, which built the acclaimed Orenco Station in Hillsboro, Oregon, has gone to great lengths to secure federal funds for environmental...
Developers are increasingly replacing the skin on dull postwar office buildings and converting the interiors to condominium apartments to meet downtown housing demands, The New York Times reported July 6. Since many 1950s and 1960s office buildings...
The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) have created the Governors’ Institute on Community Design, modeled on NEA’s highly successful Mayors’ Institute for Community Design.
The Governors’ Institute...
A paper from the Victoria Transport Policy Institute, “Terrorism, Transit and Public Safety: Evaluating the Risks,” analyzes the overall safety of public transit, taking into account all risks, including recent terrorist attacks. The study by...
New Haven Mayor John DeStefano Jr. announced in late June that he would like to convert a short expressway segment near the Connecticut city’s downtown to a boulevard. Filling a sunken, less-than-one-mile section of the Route 34 Oak Street Connector...
Dan Camp, developer of the Cotton District in Starkville, Mississippi, was elected mayor of Starkville June 7, winning 61 percent of the vote. Camp argued during the campaign that a new police headquarters and municipal court facility should be...
A two-story office and retail building will house a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant in downtown Carmel, Indiana, according to the Indianapolis Star. The building will have a drive-through lane, but will be placed close to the street and have more...
Stuart Sirota has left the Baltimore office of Parsons Brinckerhoff to start TND Planning Group, a “planning, design, and development practice that focuses on bringing New Urbanism and placemaking to the marketplace.” Email is stusirota@verizon.net...