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.
Barbara A. Nadel, editor in chief McGraw-Hill, 2004, 672 pp., $89.95. “The Oklahoma City bombing marked the beginning of a national, industrywide approach to security planning and building design to combat terrorism,” New York architect Barbara...
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...
Robert Sitkowski, formerly with the law firm Robinson & Cole in Hartford, Connecticut, has moved to Chicago, where he now practices land use law at Freeborn & Peters. He can be reached at rsitkowski@freebornpeters.com.
Homebuilder D.R. Horton selected Sean Compton of TBG Partners to plan and entitle a 280-acre TND in Austin, Texas, called Pioneer Hill. This project will be the first to be developed under Austin’s 1997 TND ordinance, TBG says.
Doucette Homes’ Civano Sol development at Civano in Tucson, Arizona, won a Gold Nugget 2004 Award of Merit from the Pacific Coast Builders Conference and Builder magazine as “best sustainable/green residential project of the year.”
A new town for sign language users is being planned near Sioux Falls, South Dakota. The Laurent Company, spearheaded by Marvin Miller, who is deaf, and his hearing mother-in-law M.E. Barwacz, is working with new urbanist planner and engineer Peter...
Marc Wouters, who worked extensively on HOPE VI public housing redevelopment projects for Torti Gallas & Partners, has moved to Cooper Robertson & Partners in New York.
With a grant from the John Nolen Family Fund, Lee Sobel of the US...
Congress passed legislation June 29 that extends the expiration date of the federal TEA-21 transportation law until the end of July. Even so, the Surface Transportation Policy Project says most observers see no chance that the House and Senate will...
The success of River Ranch, a 256-acre community that Robert Daigle is developing in Lafayette, Louisiana, is spurring other people in Louisiana to consider Traditional Neighborhood Development. Officials of Ascension Parish, between New Orleans and...
Dial Realty of Kansas City, Missouri, began construction in June on Crescent Creek, a 22-acre Traditional Neighborhood Development in Raytown, a first-ring postwar suburb of Kansas City. A creek that runs through the site will remain open. On the...
Having made a fortune by founding the Internet service provider MindSpring and later merging it into EarthLink, Charles Brewer is in an enviable situation: he’s able to develop a new urban project in Atlanta “without borrowing a dime.” In the past...