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.
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...
A Leon Krier tower, depicted below, is planned to stand at the center of Seaside, Florida. Significant parts of the town center are being redesigned by architect Daniel Parolek of Opticos Design. Look for an article in the March issue of New Urban...
Attorneys Doris Goldstein of Jacksonville and Dan Slone of Richmond — with David B. Wolfe, an old hand at community association management — are involved in a new initiative aimed at improving the workings of homeowners’ associations (HOAs). “Most...
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.
Due to a disagreement over equity financing levels, the City of Lenexa, Kansas, broke off its three-year partnership with the Haile Group, a new urbanist developer based in Gainesville, Florida. The Haile Group drew up plans for, and was planning to...
An organization called “The Students for the New Urbanism at the University of Miami” (SNU Miami) has been formed, with Juan Muller [should be “Mullerat”] as president. The group expects to produce a publication that will be distributed in January...
The Atlanta Regional Commission has allocated $252 million of mainly federal funds toward establishment of a transit line and a linear park on existing railroad rights-of-way that ring Atlanta’s downtown, Midtown, and intown neighborhoods. The...