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.
Three Chicago area organizations — the Campaign for Sensible Growth, the Metropolitan Mayors Caucus, and the Metropolitan Planning Council — have produced a 66-page workbook, Sensible Tools for Healthy Communities: A Decision-Making Workbook for...
Construction is under way on the first 230 houses in Costa Pacific Communities’ large Villebois project in Wilsonville, Oregon (see Sept. 2003 New Urban News). In August the company sold 39 acres to West Hills Development; the land constitutes the...
The National Center for Bicycling and Walking, based in Washington, DC, teamed up with the Rhode Island Statewide Planning Program to conduct workshops in eight Rhode Island municipalities on how to make communities more pedestrian-friendly. Mark...
Ed McMahon, an attorney and planner who cofounded Scenic America and has been vice president and director of land use programs at The Conservation Fund, has been named Charles Fraser Senior Resident Fellow for Sustainable Development at the Urban...
After four year as CNU’s Director of Policy and Research, Ellen Greenberg will return to the practice of city planning this September. While her focus shifts from studying and advancing new urbanist strategies to implementing them, Ellen plans to...
Edited by Stephanie E. Bothwell, Andres M. Duany, Peter J. Hetzel, Steven W. Hurtt, and Dhiru A. Thadani New Urban Press, 2004, 437 pp, $35 paperback. “As far as I’m concerned, everything is architecture, from silverware and furniture to...
Public agencies and community groups are becoming increasingly eager to use charrettes to plan new developments or to guide the redevelopment of areas in need of a makeover. And the National Charrette Institute (NCI) in Portland, Oregon, is...
“Urban initiative funds,” or UIFs, are on the rise. First the New Mexico Urban Initiatives Fund began operations and placed its initial investment — $1.5 million — in the $9.8 million Gold Avenue Lofts project in downtown Albuquerque. Now a second...
ACalifornia law explicitly stating that form-based codes are legal was signed in July by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger after the measure was approved unanimously by the legislature. Although the law does not require municipalities to adopt new urban...
About 80 people attended the Next Generation meeting held at the Palmer House in Chicago prior to the Congress for the New Urbanism in June, according to Brian Wright, an organizer of the event. The Next Generation group includes about 200 new...
A new village for 550 homes, a school, shops, community center, and health center is proposed for Flintshire, in North Wales, United Kingdom. The Prince’s Foundation, Britain’s leading New Urbanism proponents, had an early role in steering the...
Juneau Avenue Partners announced in July that House of Blues Entertainment will occupy a 32,000-square-foot club and Jenco Cinemas will operate a 16-screen Cinemax theater in Milwaukee’s PabstCity project. The 1.2-million-square-foot PabstCity...