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.
The City of Macon, Georgia, has received federal transportation funds to redevelop the historic Macon Terminal Station as an intermodal facility combining commuter rail, shuttle, and local and regional bus service. The 1916 station, designed by New...
Will Selman has formed a consulting firm, Town Planning and Design Associates, in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, to serve clients who need assistance with new urban development and code projects. He resigned as staff planner for the Lancaster County...
A new booklet, “Higher-Density Development: Myth and Fact,” tries to dispel negative perceptions about higher-density development. The glossy 32-page booklet published by the Urban Land Institute (ULI) profiles 16 projects across the US — many of...
Atlantic Station, the 138-acre new urban redevelopment of a steel mill near downtown Atlanta, is moving forward very quickly. More than a thousand residents already live in condos and apartments in the development, according to a report in the...
By Joel S. Hirschhorn, Ph.D. Sterling & Ross Publishers, 2005, 400 pp., hardcover $25.95 When a big idea bursts upon the American scene, it often takes two different forms: first a carefully argued book for serious readers, and second, a...
One-bedroom apartments in San Francisco command rents averaging $1,731 a month, and nearly a quarter of the city’s renters pay more than half their income for housing, according to a local real estate source, RentalGuide.com. Consequently the city...
Online requests for the SmartCode rose significantly after DPZ announced that it was dropping the licensing fee (April/May 2005 New Urban News). One of two websites that are allowing the code to be downloaded, www.tnd
townpaper.com, said that 18,...
After seven years, Elizabeth Humstone has left the Vermont Forum on Sprawl to become director of US Initiatives for the Institute for Sustainable Communities, at its home office in Montpelier, Vermont. The website is www.iscvt.org. Her first project...
The Project for Public Spaces has developed a website on “context-sensitive solutions” in road design, with support from the Federal Highway Administration. Visit www.contextsensitivesolutions.org. The site suggests readings on context-sensitive...
Regulations that restrict development in Loudoun County, Virginia, were struck down March 3 by the Virginia Supreme Court. The ruling, decided on a technicality, will allow much more development in the western portion of Loudoun, said to be the...
Independence, Ohio, a suburb south of Cleveland with 7,100 residents, intends to ask developers to submit proposals to build a town center project including stores, offices, senior housing, and tightly spaced houses. Mayor Fred Ramos said the...
By Vincent Scully, Catherine Lynn, Erik Vogt, and Paul Goldberger Yale University Press, 2004, 406 pp., paperback $45. How do you judge whether a university is treating its host city decently? Some focus on how much or how little the...