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.
Afton Village, a TND in Concord, North Carolina, is getting its town center underway this year, after a nearby interchange was built on I-85 that will generate more traffic to the area. The first commercial building is complete, providing retail...
For a quarter-century, the old Albuquerque High School— five big buildings built from 1914 to 1940 just two blocks east of downtown—stood empty, lurching from one failed development proposal to another. Now, Rob Dickson’s Paradigm & Company is...
Pedestrians account for 12 percent of U.S. traffic deaths, but less than one percent of federal transportation funds goes toward protecting people on foot, according to a report from the Surface Transportation Policy Project. Orlando is the most...
HOPE VI began with a simple mission: razing public housing that was so rundown and unsafe that nobody could fathom restoring it to livability. Incorporating ideas from Henry Cisneros, Bruce Katz, Richard Baron, Peter Calthorpe, Andres Duany,...
Leon Krier is lead architect for a new building for the University of Miami School of Architecture, home to America’s first program in town and suburban design. Krier and his collaborators — Merrill and Pastor Architects of Vero Beach and Ferguson...
Chapters update: Since announcing the creation of a structure for student chapters, we’ve received calls from the University of Colorado, University of Charleston, Georgia Tech, and Notre Dame. Get into discussions with students and faculty members...
CNU is now offering extra discounts and benefits for larger groups with several new membership levels: Companies of up to fifteen employees, companies up to 30 employees, and another for companies with over 30 workers. Those joining at the new...
A gas station-convenience store at Calhoun and Meeting Streets in downtown Charleston, SC meets the street in a way that serves pedestrians. Instead of occupying the center or rear of the lot, the Charleston store hugs a front corner of its property...
A plan by Urban Design Associates of Pittsburgh for reconfiguring a large swath of East Baltimore won an Honor Award from the American Institute of Architects. Produced under Ray Gindroz, the plan includes a two million sq. ft. biotech campus next...
Bradburn’s first commercial buildings — two 11,000 sq. ft., one-story retail structures — face one another at the primary entrance to the development. As such, they must enclose the street and make a strong impression on visitors. The original...
A $10.6 billion package of plans by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg would convert much of Lower Manhattan into what The New York Times calls “an urban hamlet of housing, schools, libraries and theaters, as well as other businesses.” In contrast to the...
“The improvements that HOPE VI has created in cities are dramatic,” says former HUD Secretary Henry Cisneros. HOPE VI developments “may not be classical New Urbanism in every case, but they are uniformly better than what was there,” according to...