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.
James Urban, principal of Urban Trees & Soils in Annapolis, has compiled 10 strategies, of three different kinds, for successful development of trees in cities.
Finding the right mix and right design for retail will go a long way toward determining whether redevelopment of New York’s World Trade Center site will succeed, says an Urban Land Institute panel. A panel of retail development experts from the US...
A one-story, 3,617 sq. ft. building that architect Michael A. Smith modeled on the Greek Revival style is being constructed for a State Farm insurance agency in Baldwin Park, an 1,100-acre development two miles from downtown Orlando, Florida. Twelve...
Developers Ken Talle and Brad Johnson have broken ground for 28 rental townhouses in Ramsey Village, a new urban redevelopment in the West Duluth section of Duluth, Minnesota. The century-old neighborhood has also been getting new detached houses,...
Two kayaking young developers in Colorado expect to break ground in the spring for a 40-acre new urban project overlooking the white water of the Arkansas River about 100 miles west of Colorado Springs. Katie Selby, 28, and her brother Jed Selby, 25...
Wal-Mart has backed out of plans to locate a 40,000 sq. ft. Neighborhood Market in Highlands Garden Village, a new urban redevelopment project in Denver (see the June 2004 issue of New Urban News). The store would have anchored the 27-acre project’s...
By Will Toor and Spenser W. Havlick Island Press, 2004, 293 pp., hardcover $60; paperback $30. This new book by Will Toor, director of the University of Colorado Environmental Center, and Spenser W. Havlick, retired professor of environmental...
Portland, Oregon, is seeking better designs for the so-called skinny house. The city’s R-2.5 zoning category allows the traditional 50-by-100-foot Portland lot to be halved lengthwise. When required sideyard setbacks are subtracted, the result is a...
New zoning for downtown Providence, Rhode Island, part of a package of measures recommended in a Duany Plater-Zyberk & Co. charrette last March, suffered a setback when a judge ruled the zoning invalid because of the public hearing process in...
Carlos Rodrigues, implementation director in the New Jersey Office of Smart Growth for the past 10 years, is now working for Looney Ricks Kiss Architects in Princeton, NJ.
“Big-box stores married to residences are appearing in Chicago, Washington, Seattle and San Francisco,” The New York Times reported Aug. 19 in an article titled “Shopping on 1, Sleeping on 2.” “To satisfy the needs of commuters tired of commuting...
Winmore, a new urban project planned for 66 acres in Carrboro and Chapel Hill, North Carolina, has changed hands for $5 million. Partners Phil Szostak, Bob Chapman, and Herman Greene sold to local developers Scott Kovens and Eric Chupp. With 232...