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.
Santana Row, the large-scale, mixed-use urban center that suffered heavy fire damage just prior to opening in 2002, has stabilized its finances. Developer Federal Realty Investment Trust reports that first-phase earnings are a steady five percent,...
A study by a University of Minnesota researcher adds to the growing evidence that urban places reduce automobile use. The study looked at the travel patterns of households in the Seattle area that moved from urban to suburban locations (defined...
“Stop and stay stopped. It’s that simple.” That’s how America Walks president Ellen Vanderslice sums up Oregon’s new law requiring motorists to yield to pedestrians in intersections with or without traffic signals or crosswalks.
The law, which...
CNU member Linda Matthew is leading an effort to compile detailed information about new urbanist projects in a new CNU online database. This database will supplement New Urban News’ annual overview of projects. We need volunteers to interview...
Increasingly embraced by mainstream business groups such as the Urban Land
Institute, CNU now has an endorsement from one of the staunchest institutions of the political right as well. This summer, the National Review, founded by William F....
Northwest Landing, a new urban community in Dupont, Washington, is getting a town center, called Dupont Station, this year to serve its 4,000 residents. Master planned by Calthorpe Associates, Northwest Landing opened at the end of 1994. Residents...
Toronto’s Regent Park, one of the oldest and largest public housing projects in Canada, is about to be transformed into what urban planning consultant Ken Greenberg calls “a real urban neighborhood, dense and active, and fully integrated into the...
cleaned-up brownfield site in Moncton, New Brunswick, is expected to become a 53-acre collection of more than 900 apartments, condominium units, detached houses, duplexes, and rowhouses in a setting offering what its planners describe as a “...
Between 1982 and 1997, developed land in the Portland, Maine, region grew by 108 percent while the population grew by just 17 percent. A 150-acre parcel in Scarborough, just south of Portland, is zoned for just 65 single houses — a number which is...
About 200 builders, developers, public officials, and architects attended a conference “Great Houses for Great Neighborhoods” cosponsored by the Seaside Institute and the Norfolk Redevelopment & Housing Authority in September. Attendance, which...
For CNU members, the annual Congress is a powerful experience. They get exposed to a range of successful new urbanist projects. They learn from leaders in the fields of urban planning, architecture, development and government. And they interact with...
Chicago-area CNU members are off to an early start on the 2004 Congress. CNU Board Member Jacky Grimshaw, Doug Farr, and Peter Skosey are chairing the CNU XII Local Host Committee. CNU’s Sandrine Milanello will coordinate the Chicago meeting, which...