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 study in central Texas indicates that pocket parks play a key role in making higher density palatable for homebuyers in a new urban community. The survey, “Buying New Urbanism,” found that small lot sizes, by themselves, face resistance in new...
One of the best booklets in the field is Designing for Security: Using Art and Design to Improve Security, produced in 2002 by the Art Commission of the City of New York and the Design Trust for Public Space. This 67-page illustrated report is...
Between 1979 and 1999, “middle-class households remained a significant, even growing presence in a number of mostly middle-sized cities such as Grand Rapids, Tacoma, and St. Petersburg,” says a Brookings Institution analysis of census data by Alan...
The Airport Authority of Gadsden, Alabama, recently selected a design team headed by Pittsburgh’s LaQuatra Bonci Associates to create a new urban master plan for 385 acres owned by the authority. Other team members include Michael Meddick, ACP...
Alan Hoffman, one of the founders of Aldea, a new urban community underway near Santa Fe, NM, is now proposing Oshara Village, a new town with 735 units and substantial commercial, also near Santa Fe. The town’s plaza would be bounded on one side...
Calgary’s first new urban form-based code has been drafted to direct redevelopment of an 83-acre area between downtown and Fort Calgary, a historical park. About 9,000 new residents plus commercial uses and possibly a college campus are planned to...
The Victoria Transport Policy Institute, in Victoria, British Columbia, has added a new chapter titled “Roadway Connectivity” to its “Online Transit Demand Management Encyclopedia.” The chapter discusses well-connected road or path networks, which...
Excelsior and Grand, a $150 million development in St. Louis Park, MN, is getting high marks from the local media. A recent article in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune begins thus: “Looking for a way to turn your aging suburban strip into a hip, people-...
The “American Dream” has always included not only owning your own home but being your own boss. It is odd therefore that not nearly as much thought, effort, and money have gone into how to provide affordable workspace as into achieving affordable...
How to code live/work units, a new building type in the modern mixed-use era, is often tricky. Nowhere have fire and safety codes for live/work units created as much controversy as in Fairview Village in Fairview, Oregon. Businesses on Village...
The General Services Administration (GSA) has developed a “kit of parts” consisting of benches, bollards, ornamental railings, and other elements that can help protect a building from attackers in vehicles and at the same time contribute to the...
Brian Wright recently moved on from Duany Plater-Zyberk & Company to become the director of town planning and urban design at the Southern Land Company. u