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.
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...
The Southern California Association of Governments has selected a team headed by John Fregonese and Peter Calthorpe to lead a “ Growth Visioning” project, one of the largest such exercises undertaken to date. The region has a population exceeding 15...
CATALYST is a new partnership formed by Matt Taecker, formerly a principal at Calthorpe Associates, and Tom Richman, a landscape architect with experience in ecological site planning and community visioning. The San Francisco-based firm has a staff...
As our tenth annual gathering of proponents of the New Urbanism approaches, the time is right to look back at the movement’s accomplishments. At the same time, big new challenges lie ahead —most notably that of helping existing suburbs become...
Moule & Polyzoides of Pasadena, California, has completed a plan for Arboleda, a 210-acre community in King City, California, developed by Creekbridge Homes. The Transect-based design includes a site for a middle school to be built by the...
Grosvenor Village in North Bethesda, Maryland, is the first transit-oriented development to go into construction on land formerly owned by the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA). Developer Potomac Investment Properties teamed...
The Atlanta Regional Commission (ARC) has stepped up its model smart growth grant program, called the Livable Centers Initiative, awarding more than $28 million in 2002 — compared to $1 million in 2001. The program is the largest of its kind, using...
The designers and developers of California project cross a utility and infrastructure minefield after gaining approvals and financing.
For the designers and developers of the Doe Mill Neighborhood, located in Chico, north of Sacramento, getting...
Despite selling nearly 1,600 homes in Canada’s fastest-growing new urban community, Carma Developers see a limited market for traditional neighborhoods.
Carma Developers was one of the first Canadian development companies to take a chance with...