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.
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...
Pottstown, Pennsylvania, enacted an innovative land-use ordinance aimed at reinforcing its historical development pattern. “Several new homes are being built on small lots that had been vacant for decades and we are seeing higher quality proposals”...
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...
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...