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.
A radical anti-sprawl group, the Earth Liberation Front, has claimed responsibility for setting fire to three luxury homes under construction at the Island Estates Development on what was one of Long Island’s last remaining farms. Smoke and flame...
The Vermont Forum on Sprawl has issued a four-page color publication on the Vermont Neighborhoods Project, showing how new housing can be inserted gracefully into three Vermont communities: Shoreham, Middlebury, and Vergennes. The plans reflect...
In Drachten and other small communities in northern Holland, traffic engineer Hans Monderman is stirring debate by eliminating many of the customary elements of streets and roads, such as traffic lights, speed limit signs, and pavement markings. “...
McCaffery Interests, which built the highly successful Market Common, Clarendon transit-oriented, mixed-use project in Arlington, Virginia, has another project in the works of the same name. Market Common in Myrtle Beach is described as an “urban...
The East Beach project along Chesapeake Bay in Norfolk, Virginia, is attracting homebuyers to a section of the city that used to be so dangerous that cab drivers and pizza deliverers refused to go there. “Forty-five to fifty houses are under...
A credit line on page 14 of the January 2005 issue incorrectly identified the source of a redevelopment plan in South Euclid, Ohio. It should have stated Cupkovic Architects.
Treasure Coast Regional Planning Council (TCRPC) in Stuart, Florida, has sponsored approximately 90 new urban design charrettes in the last 17 years, far outdistancing any other public agency. Among the 537 regional planning councils in the US,...
An investigation by The Boston Globe found that firefighters respond faster to blazes in Boston and other big cities than they do to fires in many suburbs. A January series of articles revealed that the response time of American fire departments is...
Ken Hughes is staffing the task force, which he says is “on a fast track (pun intended) to get support for TODs, to complement the new intercity rail service the governor is pushing.” Hughes notes, “We’re slated to have rail service up and operating...
Companion texts to Duany Plater-Zyberk’s SmartCode are in the works, aimed at aiding implementation. William Wright of Balch & Bingham, an attorney based in Birmingham, Alabama, has written the SmartCode Manual, a guide to the adoption,...
CNU welcomes its newest staff member, Heather Smith. As Planning Director, Heather will help advance CNU Task Forces and Initiatives and will serve as a contact for members needing assistance with other projects.
Heather’s planning background spans...
Reason Magazine, a voice of libertarians, published an article in the February 2005 issue that accuses New Urbanism of promoting crime. The 3,000-plus-word article by Randal O’Toole and Stephen Town sounds scholarly, with references to Oscar Newman...