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.
Christopher Leinberger of Arcadia Land Co., a leading new urbanist finance theorist, believes that financial returns from new urban communities lag behind conventional suburban development (CSD) in the first few years. But if done right, those new...
Architect Dhiru Thadani designed a pocket park in Washington, DC, that won a Vision Award this spring from The Committee of 100 on the Federal City. The Committee, which champions values rooted in L’Enfant’s original plan for the nation’s capital,...
Environmental Building News published the third edition of its GreenSpec Directory, containing information on more than 1,650 green building products. Approximately 250 of the entries have been added since the second edition. Included are product...
CNU’s Draft Chapters Handbook is available for perusal. If you are considering starting a chapter in your region, you should take a look at this document. It is on the web at www.cnu.org/chapters. It is not complete, so comments should be sent to...
Nashville Metro planners are looking at ways to make it easier to build traditional neighborhoods, according to a Nashvillecitypaper.com report. It takes six months longer for a typical new urban development to be approved, compared to a...
EBSCO Industries, the developer of a new urban community near Birmingham, Alabama, called Mt. Laurel, is now planning another major project. Somerset Beach was designed in June on a 160-acre site in South Walton County, Florida, on the Gulf Coast...
A 10-acre infill development by new urbanist Nate Bowman won the American Planning Association’s Outstanding Planning: Implementation award for 2003. The Southside Area Development Plan in Greensboro, North Carolina, designed by Duany Plater-Zyberk...
The name has changed — from “Sunrise,” to “Daybreak” — but the plan for Kennecott Land’s new urban community on 4,300 acres of former mining land in the Salt Lake City suburb of South Jordan remains the same and is going forward. Kennecott is...
Despite a sluggish Central Florida economy, the 617-acre Cagan Crossings TND, four miles west of Walt Disney World, is moving ahead with plans to break ground in September for its 54,000 sq. ft. town center.
Judged by numbers and ubiquity, the garage is the most successful new building type of the twentieth century. Houses prior to the rise of the automobile often trailed a variety of sheds behind them, but seldom did any of them have the size and...
The Denver redevelopment is the site of the most comprehensive public education program ever attempted by a new urbanist developer.
Stapleton, the 4,700-acre airport redevelopment that has been called the nation’s largest urban infill project, will...
Milwaukee mayor will become president and CEO of the Congress for New Urbanism in January.
Milwaukee Mayor John O. Norquist’s selection as the incoming president and chief executive officer of the Congress for New Urbanism provided a dramatic...