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.
Since the Charter of the New Urbanism was written, people have argued
about how well development projects fulfill its principles. Homebuyers, investors, and public officials all want to know if a project is real New Urbanism. Various individuals...
A five-story, 65-foot-high apartment building has been approved for construction near Federal Realty Investment Trust’s Bethesda Row project in downtown Bethesda, Maryland. The Montgomery County Planning Board gave the go-ahead to the project –- to...
II. Terminated Vistas
Considering what the pedestrian and driver see ahead is one of the basic tasks of good urban design; management of vistas is not an empty formal gesture. It helps people get around more easily and interestingly, and it...
Deep pockets of developer keep town, built on the site of a former airport, moving forward.
Bombardier, the big Canadian manufacturer of trains, planes, and watercraft, has found a way to keep its 500-acre Bois-Franc development in Montreal...
Albuquerque overhauled its downtown development requirements about two years ago, and the simplicity of the new system has helped set off what is, by the standards of a previously somnolent downtown, a huge building boom.
Moule & Polyzoides...
A study in metropolitan Portland provides a largely but not wholly encouraging answer to the question of whether new urban design gets suburbanites out of their cars.
Sociologist Bruce Podobnik has found that residents of the new urban...
Wal-Mart, the king of discount superstores on suburban commercial strips, has apparently discovered a new market — city dwellers. Wal-Mart recently opened a store in a mixed-use, urban location in Long Beach, California, without the usual sea of...
Ken Snyder, a former official with the Department of Energy, has formed PlaceMatters.com. The nonprofit organization is set up to help communities create more livable neighborhoods through what Snyder calls “vision-centered, place-based planning.”
For years, CNU members have sought ways to customize the organization so that it can serve specific geographical areas. Up to now, CNU has not had a method for supporting chapters. Consequently, members’ mutual education and networking remained...
A Village Square composed of eight buildings is the centerpiece of Devaun Park, a 483-unit TND being constructed on 149 acres on the outskirts of Calabash, North Carolina. The Square, situated within a five-minute walk of most residents’ homes, will...
The National Town Builders Association (NTBA) has formed a new executive board consisting of Theresa Burt of the Midland Companies, Jeffrey Cagan of the Cagan Management Group, Steve Maun of Leyland Development, Robert Turner of the Habersham Land...
Architect and planner Jonathan Barnett joined Wallace, Roberts & Todd. Barnett is the second board member of the Congress for the New Urbanism to join the firm this year.