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.
Washington, DC, architect Dhiru Thadani’s work at mapping all the “outdoor rooms” of the city’s monumental core, block by block and building by building, was the subject of an Aug. 27 article in the Washington City Paper. Thadani began the project...
Pittsburgh’s East Liberty section is on the upswing, aided by the East End Growth Fund, which since 2001 has invested more than $5 million in loans and recoverable grants and supported projects ranging from live-work loft conversions to the arrival...
More than a hundred thousand people showed up to tour the first houses in East Beach, a new urban infill project in Norfolk, Virginia. The 100-acre development, planned a decade ago by Duany Plater-Zyberk & Company (DPZ), was the site of this...
St. Louis-based developer Richard Baron, cofounder, chairman, and CEO of McCormack Baron Salazar, Inc., has won the Urban Land Institute’s J.C. Nichols Prize for Visionaries in Urban Development. In presenting the $100,000 prize, ULI cited McCormack...
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...
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...
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...