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.
Anumber of northern cities are known for weather-enclosed pedestrian bridges that allow people to circulate through downtown without venturing into the bitter cold. But after three decades of developing an extensive downtown “skyway” system, St....
Duany Plater-Zyberk & Co. has settled on a gradation of tree-planting for various parts of the Transect. In rural sectors of the Transect, T1-T3, “the plantings should be informally grouped (clustered), and can include various tree types and...
Andres Duany of Duany Plater-Zyberk & Company was the only new urbanist to make Builder magazine’s list of 50 top industry power brokers. Duany was ranked number five, behind only Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, Fannie Mae Chairman...
Advocates of transit-oriented development (TOD) in the San Francisco Bay Area are talking about reducing the number of parking spaces that must be provided when parking lots at BART stations are redeveloped for housing and other uses. TOD projects...
A proposal to build a Target in north Milwaukee will test that city’s new standards for retail development. Developer Redmond Co. of Waukesha, Wisconsin, wants to put in a typical 130,000 sq. ft. box with a massive parking lot in front, according to...
Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell signed a law in December that encourages development around bus and rail stations. The law authorizes establishment of Transit Revitalization Investment Districts (TRIDs) — partnerships between local governments,...
Of all the ways of developing land that prevail today in America, the housing pod is probably the most pervasive. The unintended consequence of a post-World War II policy of mass housing production on “efficient” cleared sites is this: the American...
Thirteen houses in Beall’s Hill in Macon, Georgia, have received facelifts to show developers what the neighborhood, which has an ambitious new urban redevelopment plan, can become. About $600,000 has been allocated for public improvements in the...
Kennecott Land’s Daybreak, in South Jordan, Utah, is off to a strong start. More than 200 houses were sold in its first six months, Kort Utley of Kennecott Land told New Urban News. The 4,200-acre project, planned by Calthorpe Associates, opened in...
Sales at Baldwin Park in Orlando, Florida, have continued at a torrid pace. Absorption has averaged 700 units per year, according to a report in Land Development magazine. The project, which began sales in 2002 and opened model homes in April of...
Can Hagerstown and other cities just beyond the sprawl of the Washington-Baltimore metropolitan area be strengthened through renovation of their centers and by compact new development? That’s the question that drives Alan Feinberg and Nick Pittas....
James Urban, principal of Urban Trees & Soils in Annapolis, has compiled 10 strategies, of three different kinds, for successful development of trees in cities.