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.
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...
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...
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...
Soon US pedestrians will have to share their limited sidewalk space with the Segway scooter. The Washington Post reports that four months after the much ballyhooed scooter was unveiled, 20 states have passed laws allowing its use on sidewalks....