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.
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...
Adoption of TND ordinances off to slow start
Wisconsin’s 1999 smart growth law mandated that all cities and towns with more than 12,500 people had to adopt some form of traditional neighborhood development (TND) ordinance no later than January 1...
The Federal Highway Administration has launched a new traffic calming web site dedicated to all the known and/or electronically publicized transportation programs and studies pertaining to traffic calming. See: www.fhwa.dot.gov/environment/tcalm/...
Austin Triangle, a smart growth showcase project in the Texas capital (see October/November 2000 issue), suffered a setback last December when residential developer Post Properties withdrew. Commercial developer Cencor Urban Realty has had five...
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 University of North Carolina’s Center for Urban and Regional Studies launched the Smart Growth and the New Economy Program to examine links between the two topics. Communities that pursue smart growth may have a competitive edge in attracting...
One of the greatest challenges for a developer or public official who wants
to promote New Urbanism is finding the best way to concisely explain the basic principles. New presentations from the CNU help get across the big picture. CNU’s “Tour of...
The Stapleton development in Denver has a Workforce Housing Program designed to ensure that at least 10 percent of the for-sale homes will be relatively affordable. A total of 800 condominiums, townhomes, and duplexes will be built under this...