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.
Madison, Wisconsin, has adopted an ordinance that requires developers of projects of 10 or more housing units to set aside 15 percent of the units for people who earn less than the Dane County median income. In exchange for providing the affordable...
The Northshore Town Center, described as a 141-acre new urban development near Knoxville, Tennessee, is slated to break ground soon. The James Doran Company is planning 120 detached houses, 450 apartments, 150 townhouses, shops, a 20-screen movie...
Westhaven, a new urban project in the very early stages of construction near Nashville, Tennessee, appears to have strong momentum, according to an article in the Tennessean newspaper. One hundred thirty homes were sold as of February in the 1,540-...
Surrey, British Columbia, has adopted a plan that requires small developers to cooperate in creating neighborhoods that are walkable, connected to transit, close to stores and services, and environmentally benign.
The city, working with Patrick...
Authentic Development Patterns for Small Towns and Rural Areas By Christopher J. Duerksen and James van Hemert American Planning Association, 2003, 248 pp., paperback. $59.95. “The Old West is rapidly giving way to a New West that bears...
The first phase of Cornerstone, a $60 million town center in Parma Heights, Ohio, will open late this year or early in 2005. Anchored by Claire’s Folly, an 84,000-square-foot family entertainment center including a dinner theater, a brewpub, and a...
Communities increasingly worry about big-box stores because mammoth warehouse-like retail emporiums tend to be cheaply built and are prone to abandonment after several years. “Across the country, 245 former Wal-Marts sit empty or partially empty,”...
Bill Dennis, director of the Albuquerque office of Moule & Polyzoides Architects and Urbanists, is leaving the firm April 1 to start his own Albuquerque-based urban design consulting firm, B. Dennis Town & Building Design. Its website will...
Want images that show how communities can be designed for walking and bicycling? The Pedestrian and Bicycle Information Center in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, has teamed up with Walkable Communities Inc. and the Institute of Transportation Engineers...
CNU welcomes Payton Chung to its Chicago headquarters staff. Payton is the main contact for membership, order, and reference inquiries; he also coordinates technology and special projects for the office. Originally from North Carolina, Payton...
The 2020 Community Plan in Bozeman, Montana, calls for development of about a dozen neighborhood commercial centers, where nearby residents can get basic goods and services such as a cup of coffee, a meal, or a haircut. One such center is up and...
In a Feb. 24 Washington Post column about the “niggling NIMBYs of negativism,” Marc Fisher noted that a “relative handful of very loud people” who own homes near downtown Bethesda, Maryland, have continued trying to stop Federal Realty Investment...