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 new study by Todd Litman of the Victoria Transport Policy Institute finds that cities with large, well-established rail systems have lower per-capita traffic congestion costs, fewer traffic fatalities per capita, lower per-capita consumer...
Real estate development’s most tediously repeated truism is that the three most important factors in property value are location, location, and location. That observation has now been stretched into a self-fulfilling prophecy. American retailing, in...
Dan Burden, doubtless the most constantly traveling traffic-tamer in the United States, carried his narrow-the-roadways message to an unlikely venue Oct. 27 — a cars section in The New York Times. In an interview that filled nearly half a page above...
New mini-cul-de-sacs are a problem in Winchester, Massachusetts, a town of 21,000 northwest of Boston. It’s become increasingly common for developers to demolish a house and replace it with a small cul-de-sac and three or four new houses. “There are...
Thirteen mid-career professionals from a variety of fields began 2004-2005 Knight Fellowships in Community Building at the University of Miami. They are: Tom Cotruvo (MN); James Epstein (Washington, DC); Lisa Hogan (FL); Michael Jones (MS); Yon...
John Z. Wetmore, producer of the public access TV show “Perils for Pedestrians,” has compiled Volume I — a set of seven DVDs containing 28 half-hour episodes. Wetmore, of Bethesda, Maryland, sells the set for $90, including shipping. See www....
The Waters in Montgomery, Alabama, a 1,250-acre traditional neighborhood development (TND), recently began construction. The project, designed by Placemakers, is a redesign of a TND called Grangemoor that was planned by Duany Plater-Zyberk &...
Federal Realty Investment Trust is considering converting apartments in its Santana Row project in San Jose, California, to condominiums, according to the San Jose Mercury News. The project’s 255 completed apartments were 98.8 percent leased as of...
With debate over low-cost housing policy increasingly polarized between those hostile to government housing programs and those who ignore the potential of market-based solutions, the Congress for the New Urbanism is spearheading an effort to promote...
Construction is expected to start this winter on Georgetown Land Development Company’s $300 million redevelopment of a former wire mill complex in Redding, Connecticut, one of the largest redevelopments in the state (See December 2003 New Urban News...
The City of Philadelphia unveiled a master plan for the redevelopment of the Philadelphia Navy Yard on the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers — one of the largest such projects in the US. The plan, by Robert A.M. Stern Architects, includes a 200-acre...
One of the first attempts to convert a historic hamlet into a village with the help of a new urban plan is moving forward in Kent County, Maryland. Developer Carl Wright attended a wedding in Kentlands, the noted new urban development in...