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.
With a grant from the John Nolen Family Fund, Lee Sobel of the US Environmental Protection Agency will be at Cornell University in mid-July to study the origins and principles of town plans that John Nolen produced. “My goal is to codify the...
The first issue of New Urban Living, a full-color bimonthly magazine aimed at showing how new urban communities deliver a better quality of life, has been published by New Urban Living LLC of Ormond Beach, Florida. The 72-page premier issue, dated...
The New York State Department of Transportation is warming up to modern roundabouts. This summer DOT completed installation of the first roundabout in Washington County, northeast of Albany. It’s at the intersection of Routes 29 and 40 in Greenwich...
Smith Wilson and Pamela S. NeSmith have nearly completed the conversion of a former Coca-Cola bottling works in Athens, Georgia, to townhouses, flats, restaurants, shops, and offices. The two Athens-based developers have sold all but 2 of the 13...
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...
When Disney started developing Celebration, it called on nationally known architects to design many of the downtown buildings. At Baldwin Park, by contrast, famous architects haven’t been needed.
• The Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU XII) in late June in Chicago hosted a session, The Coming Demand, which examined an “increasing demand for accessible and visitable housing and neighborhoods.” Accessibility/visitability advocates also staged...
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...
One indicator of the growing desire to live in Manhattan is the conversion of gas stations to more valuable uses. “Since 1999, the number of gas stations in Manhattan has declined by 18 percent, to 207,” The New York Times reported June 7. “Cropping...