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.
Dilapidated housing, parking lots, and commercial buildings in the Elliot Park neighborhood in Downtown Minneapolis have been replaced by East Village, a $29.5-million mixed-use, infill development. The four- and five-story brick buildings designed...
The City of Oak Ridge, Tennessee, is the latest community to adopt a parallel traditional neighborhood development (TND) code. The effort grew out of the proposal for Rarity Ridge, a new urban community designed by Tunnell-Spangler & Associates...
The argument between real estate developer Silverstein Properties and the Australian-owned shopping mall company Westfield America reportedly centers on whether a restored street grid would be detrimental to future retail development on the Lower...
Collaborating with a landowner, the City of Azusa attracted national firms to design a a transit-oriented community on one of the largest undeveloped infill sites in the Los Angeles region.
In a region where the Playa Vista
project in Los...
Sales in 14 selected new urban pro-jects cooled off by 4.5 percent in 2001, after they rose 34 percent in 2000.
After a year characterized by tur-
moil, uncertainty, and low interest rates, the picture emerging from New Urban News’ annual...
Architect Dhiru Thadani heads the new Town Planning Studio at the Washington office of Ayers Saint Gross. The firm specializes in university campus planning and architecture, and the new studio will focus on urban college town and research park...
If foundations that support the philosophy behind New Urbanism invested their endowments in these projects, they might provide an major source of capital for new urbanist projects.
Financing is a persistent frustration for developers of new...
A parking garage and other infrastructure are under construction in Atlantic Station, the 140-acre reclamation of the Atlantic Steel Mill site in Midtown Atlanta (see December 2000 issue). Master developer Jacoby Development has yet to finalize an...
Green Street Properties of Atlanta, an infill development company started by former internet entrepreneur Charles Brewer, has filed plans for Glenwood Park, a 28-acre, mixed-use neighborhood on an abandoned industrial site two miles east of downtown...
The Board of County Commissioners in Sarasota, Florida, has approved a preliminary version of Sarasota 2050, a comprehensive plan that encourages and provides incentives for compact, mixed-use development in the county’s unincorporated areas (see...
The Smart Growth Network has published “Getting to Smart Growth: 100 Policies for Implementation,” a guide for states and local communities. The publication is available free of charge at www.smartgrowth.org or by calling Juanita Smith at (202) 260...
As American-style sprawl begins to take root, two German academics argue that the New Urbanism is the missing link in the strategies to preserve and renew cities. In Berlin, an infill project showcases the principles in action.
The German...