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.
CNU founder Dan Solomon has joined Wallace Roberts & Todd (WRT), a national planning and design firm recognized for its interdisciplinary approach. Solomon’s architecture and urban design firm will retain its name, Solomon ETC, yet become part...
A new resource on energy efficient building practices is available from the Rocky Mountain Institute. The CD-ROM Green Developments 2.0 contains more than 200 case studies of green buildings and projects from around the world. Contact: Ben Shepherd...
Philip von Platen, senior editor at New Urban News, is returning to his native Denmark and other endeavors. Von Platen covered New Urbanism at this publication for nearly three years.
The tenth Congress for the New Urbanism is meeting in Miami Beach, and
for good reason. Florida is home to an astounding number and quality of new urbanist projects. Cataloging these projects is a new book, A Guidebook to New Urbanism in Florida,...
Four years ago, the San Diego City Council adopted a reuse plan for the San Diego Naval Training Center, to transform the site into an “urban village,” now called Liberty Station. The first residential neighborhood in the redevelopment area, The...
The first residential units have opened in Paseo Colorado, the mixed-use project replacing an enclosed mall in downtown Pasadena, California. Of the 387 rental units built by Post Properties, more than 100 are lofts, and the remainder are upscale...
The downturn in the high-tech sector hit hard in Austin, Texas, delaying several residential and mixed-use projects. Since 1997, the city has had a traditional neighborhood development ordinance on the books and later launched an innovative smart...
International Making Cities Livable is hosting its annual conference in Alpbach & Salzburg, Austria, on September 15-19. Conference topics include: New Urban Neighborhoods, Community Participation in Planning & Design, and more. To submit...
The City of Toronto has hired Robert Freedman as its new Director of Urban Design. Prior to his appointment, Freedman was a project manager at Urban Design Associates in Pittsburgh.
Homebuilders in Palm Beach County, Florida, are not thrilled at the prospect of proposed zoning calling for traditional neighborhood design. The Florida county won an award from the American Planning Association in 2001 for its Managed Growth Tier...
The proposal for a five-acre new urban village in Southport, Connecticut, designed during a charrette in October 2000, has been turned down once, but the developer and designers will soon submit a revised plan. “It’s been a raucous public process,”...
The Inner City Christian Federation (ICCF), a nonprofit development company that has built affordable housing in Grand Rapids, Michigan, for nearly 30 years, recently joined with new urbanist professionals in a charrette that generated a master plan...