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.
Planning consultant John P. Bergan is leading a campaign to change the placement of a World War II Memorial soon to be built in Trenton’s Veterans Park. As currently planned, the memorial would be centered in the park but would be off center to the...
Santana Row, the shopping and housing development so large and costly that for a while it caused Federal Realty Investment Trust to swear off undertaking such projects, now appears to be doing well. The $455 million redevelopment of a shopping mall...
A mature and well-conceived new urban community can easily pass the “orange juice test.” That is, a resident can send a twelve-year-old son or daughter to the corner store unaccompanied to pick up some juice or other basic supplies. One could...
Judith A. Corbett, founder of the Local Government Commission, a Sacramento-based group that helps cities and counties plan better, received the “Distinguished Leadership Award for a Citizen Planner” from the American Planning Association March 22...
People in Chittenden County, Vermont, are talking about whether they could use devices such as roundabouts, rather than a proposed Circumferential Highway, to relieve traffic congestion on Rt. 2A in the towns of Williston and Essex. The Vermont...
Public Architecture, a think tank and grassroots organization in San Francisco, has launched “1% Solution,” a program aimed at getting design professionals to commit one percent of their time to pro bono work. The new organization, at www....
With its theme, “The Polycentric City, CNU XIII will explore issues that arise in Southern California and resonate in regions and localities everywhere. After all, regions all over the United States and beyond are facing the reality of connecting,...
Bethlehem Township, Pennsylvania, recently adopted comprehensive plan and zoning amendments that will allow a town center, a traditional neighborhood development (TND), and a hospital district influenced by smart growth principles to move forward....
TOD or transit-oriented development is a complex topic that can nevertheless be demystified.
In new urbanist parlance, the “transit” of TOD is often assumed to refer to rail. But rail is merely the most glamorous of various means, including buses,...
A sea of parking lots on the periphery of New Jersey state government offices in Trenton may be divided into streets and blocks as part of the state Department of Transportation’s plan for converting the Route 29 expressway into a graceful tree-...
When the Bay Area Rapid Transit system announced in 1991 that it wanted to build a parking garage next to its station in the Fruitvale section of Oakland, the Spanish Speaking Unity Council said no, there must be a better idea. Fourteen years later...
Organizers of the federal HOPE VI public housing redevelopment program, longtime opponents of federally supported housing, and prominent new urbanists met for two days in Wisconsin in late March, trying to reach a consensus on how the federal...