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.
Kalamazoo, MI, is the latest city looking to employ New Urbanism to reinvigorate its riverfront.
The city received a $2.8 million Clean Michigan Initiative Riverfront Redevelopment Grant from the state to renew the area.
A preliminary plan,...
Once a small city unto itself — with its own phone system, water works, general store and infirmary — the 41.5-acre site in Columbus, Ohio, upon which the Jeffrey Mining Company once stood is now being transformed into Jeffrey Place. Wedged between...
As the Southern Village TND in Chapel Hill, NC, approaches buildout, developer Bryan Properties is gearing up for a new pedestrian-oriented project outside neighboring Durham. Property manager Jim Earnhardt says Bryan has contracted to purchase...
CNU member Linda Matthew is leading an effort to assemble very detailed information about new urbanist projects under construction. This database will supplement New Urban News’ annual overview of projects. Details will be available at CNU.org. If...
NewUrbanism.org has just opened its MarketPlace to serve the growing market demand for new urban practitioners. The MarketPlace will include listings of design firms, town planners, architects, developers, transportation planning firms, marketing...
Grandview, a six square-mile unincorporated area just east of Durango, CO, will become a new urban community if it is not stopped by citizen opposition to development. Jeff Speck of Duany Plater-Zyberk and Co. was hired by the Tierra Group, LLC, the...
A total of $494 million was awarded in what may be the second-to-last round of HOPE VI funding. New urbanists participated in the design of more than half of the 28 projects announced in March, 2003, allocated in the 2002 budget.
The program is...
Building envelope standards, general guiding principles:
1. Buildings are aligned and close to the street.
2. The street is a coherent space, with consistent building forms on both sides of the street.
3. Buildings oversee the street (and square...
CNU welcomes Suzahna Poliwka, a transportation engineer studying planning at the University of California, Berkeley. She will work for three months on alternative street standards.
The 2002-03 Knight Fellows are: Lolly Barnes, Chester “Rick” Chellman, Carol Coletta, Alicia Diaz, Ken Driggers, Robert Freeman, Jai Jennifer, Howard Katz, Kevin Klinkenberg, Pam Kramer, Michelle Robinson, Stuart Sirota, & Marie L. York.
After completing about 13 years of development, Kentlands is about to embark on its first redevelopment. One of the first traditional neighborhood developments (TNDs), Kentlands also includes a conventional suburban shopping district, originally...
The City of Alexandria, Virginia, in March approved a high-density neighborhood centered on a transit station plaza. Described as a “city within a city,” Eisenhower East actually wraps around a new urban community under construction called Carlyle...