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.
In greater New York, suburban development no longer outcompetes development in the urban core. In a 31-county region centered on New York City, the urban core began in the mid-1990s to gain residents and jobs at the same rate as the periphery,...
Developer New Urban Communities looks to South Miami and the Chicago area next.
Along-dormant section of Delray Beach, Florida, is begin-ning to revive, thanks in part to a townhouse, retail, office, and loft project organized by New Urban...
Wisconsin project balances need for anchor store with sensitivity of impact.
New urbanists are continually hon-ing their strategies for how to make mixed-use town centers work. A great example is Middleton Hills, a traditional neighborhood...
By John Zukowsky and Martha Thorne Rizzoli and The Art Institute of Chicago, 2004, 240 pp., $65. Chicagoans seem transfixed by their city’s role in American architecture. The reason is simple: from the late 19th century to the 1960s, native or...
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...
After three years of public debate, the Planning and Zoning Commission of Madison, Connecticut, has given Leyland Alliance of Tuxedo, New York, approval to develop a 42-acre new urban community called Madison Landing. The development, planned...
The design of every housing unit must consider both its
living and its working functions.
All dwellings are intrinsically the stage for domestic work, including such routine tasks as cooking, laundering, and maintenance.
One of the challenges for urbanists is how to prevent ballparks from becoming enormous. “Most of the traditional ballparks were on sites of no more than eight to 10 acres,” says Kevin Klinkenberg, a principal in 180 Degree Design Studio in Kansas...
The Milwaukee Common Council ap-proved a plan on June 15 for redeveloping a mile-long corridor on an edge of downtown where the blighting influence of the Park East Freeway has been eliminated.
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...