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.
Millennium Place, a downtown Boston mixed-use project that won an award at CNU X, earned praise in the Boston Globe this summer because, according to architecture critic Robert Campbell, “It understands that city life is street life.” In a July 14...
The Sustainable Buildings Industry Council has developed a guidebook for homebuilders titled Green Building Guidelines: Meeting the demand for low-energy, resource-efficient homes. Contact: (202) 628-7400 or see www.sbicouncil.org.
The organizational meeting of the Seaside Pienza Society for Town Building and Land Stewardship took place in July in Pienza, Italy. The mission of the organization is to explore “how beautiful agricultural lands can be saved from sprawl and how...
Commissioners in Chester County, Pennsylvania, have allocated $18 million for planning and revitalizing the county’s urban centers, consisting of the City of Coatesville and 12 boroughs. Planning grants of $75,000 are available, followed by $500,000...
The first 20 homes are under construction in The Preserve, a TND in Birmingham, Alabama. Located in a heavily developed suburban area within walking distance of two public schools, the 300-acre project is being developed by US Steel, one of the...
Future development patterns and standards in downtown Coral Gables, Florida, were the subject of a recent week-long charrette led by Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk and students of the University of Miami School of Architecture.
Following a $5.9-million renovation of a 1914 high school, residents are moving into The Lofts at Albuquerque High in New Mexico’s largest city. (see July/August 2001). Developed by Rob Dickson’s Paradigm & Company, The Lofts include 70 rental...
Bethesda Row, Federal Realty Investment Trust’s pedestrian-friendly redevelopment of part of downtown Bethesda, Maryland, continues to get rave reviews. “Delightful” was design critic Roger K. Lewis’s word for it recently in the Washington Post. The...
II. The forecourt Category: Semi-Public Space Subcategory: Courts The varieties of semi-public spaces must be differentiated from the family of wholly public spaces that includes the square (in its various sub-species), the plaza, and the...
Much of the current TOD is poorly designed; a report recommends a series of steps to meet smart growth goals.
The good news is that we’re mov-ing beyond the auto-oriented paradigm of the last half of the 20th Century, when commuter rail stations...
Gentlemen, start your jackhammers — the time for demolishing urban freeways is arriving.
On the last week in June, crews began breaking up pavement on the Park East Freeway just north of downtown Milwaukee — one of a number of North American urban...
Atlanta has adopted zoning changes that should make it much easier to build live-work and mixed-use development. A new live- work zoning category will let people put their shop or office on the ground floor and occupy living quarters above. A mixed-...