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.
Empire, a village in the “little finger” of Michigan northwest of Traverse City, is growing the old-fashioned way — with an extension of its traditional grid of streets, alleys, and predominantly 50-foot-wide lots.
The Seaside Institute will expand its services to developers, and the National Town Builders Association (NTBA) will focus more on public policy issues and lobbying.
Here are some of Jacobs, Macdonald, and Rofé’s recommendations on what a multiway boulevard should have if it is to perform well for pedestrians:
• Uninterrupted median strips should separate the through lanes in the center of the boulevard from...
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-...
A 40-acre brownfield neighborhood, Lantern Hill, is now under construction in Doylestown, Pennsylvania. The project, planned by Thomas Comitta Associates and being developed by Granor Price Homes, will have townhouses, apartments, and 20,000 square...
The Beer Line B neighborhood in Milwaukee is flourishing on the former industrial Commerce Street corridor located minutes from downtown with bluffside views of the Milwaukee River. The blighted brown-field sites attracted no investment until 1997,...
In a move that may take it deeper into urban areas, the Home Depot chain is experimenting with downscaling the big box. A prototype store in Brooklyn is half the size of suburban Home Depots, and similar stores are planned on Long Island and in...
Dates have been announced for next year’s CNU XI. It will be at the Omni Shoreham hotel in Washington, DC, June 19-21, 2003. If you are in the DC area and would like to take part in the local host committee, please call or write the Congress for the...
With an estimated 18 to 22 percent of Americans now afflicted by obesity, health professionals are beginning to view New Urbanism as a potential way of injecting needed exercise into everyday life.
Since 1980, obesity and overweight have grown to...
Wisconsin’s smart growth law required, among other provisions, cities and villages with populations above 12,500 to adopt a model traditional neighborhood development (TND) ordinance by January 2002. The idea behind the statewide model ordinance — a...
Infrastructure work is progressing on the future site of South Park Village, the redevelopment of an Air Force base in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. The $20 million cost of the new street grid, a landscaped parkway, sewers, and parks is covered...
The crime-ridden Riverdale Apartments complex in the Middle River-Essex area of Maryland is no more. In its place, Mark Building Co. and Enterprise Homes Inc. are constructing WaterView, a Traditional Neighborhood Development of 175 single-family...