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.
Nothing better demonstrates the hardened arteries of the conventional American development system than its lag in understanding and producing true live-work units. Largely oblivious to changes in the character and stability of modern work, and to...
By Howard Husock Ivan R. Dee, 2003, 256 pp., $26. When President Bush proposed eliminating any new money for the HOPE VI program, he was following a recommendation of Myron Magnet, editor of the Manhattan Institute’s City Journal, and of Howard...
In 1988, civic leaders in Smyrna, Georgia, several miles northwest of Atlanta, realized they needed a town center. The old downtown had practically ceased to exist, becoming not much more than a collection of “antique shops and a few other things,”...
New president/CEO will try to heighten federal encouragement for mixed-use development.
Influencing federal housing policy is going to be a top goal of the Congress for the New Urbanism under its new president and CEO, former Milwaukee Mayor...
Celebration Company, a real estate
development division of the Disney Company, sold the Celebration, Florida, town center Jan. 21 to Lexin Capital, a New York-based private investment firm. Neither party disclosed the price. However, GlobeSt.com...
A main street and 65-acre park will form the heart of Brunswick Town Center, now under construction in the City of Brunswick, south of Cleveland, Ohio. Developed since World War II in a suburban pattern, Brunswick had no downtown for its 35,000...
Sun Prairie, Wisconsin, is a municipality with a whole lot of New Urbanism going on, supported by public officials and developers.
Peter Brown, a planning consultant and advocate of New Urbanism, narrowly lost his race for Houston City Council in November. Running against an incumbent, Brown garnered 48 percent of the vote for an at-large council seat. He intends to try again...
It may cost more to live in the suburbs than the city, when the expenses of commuting and of operating and maintaining a larger suburban house are included. That’s the conclusion of a study in greater Toronto led by Eric Miller of the University of...
Magnolia Square, a 300-acre high-density new urban development in The Colony, Texas , has completed two phases which are appraised at $60 million, according to a report in the Colony Courier-Leader. City officials are pleased at the tax revenues...
Ho-Chunk Village, a 40-acre new urban project in Native American land in Winnebago, Nebraska, has received a $200,000 grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation as part of the Active Living by Design program. Ho-Chunk Village, planned by HRD, 180...
Donald Watson, Alan Plattus, and Robert G. Shibley, Editors Judging by its title, you might think Time-Saver Standards for Urban Design would be a source mainly for street widths, sidewalk dimensions, parking ratios, and other matters than can...