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.
Charlotte City Council voted unanimously to disallow cul-de-sacs, except when geographic barriers prevent street connections. Existing cul-de-sacs won’t be affected. The vote is a significant step toward connectivity of neighborhood design, and was...
Editor’s note. This is the second in a series of articles that explore the economic realities behind new urban projects.
Fairview Village packs a lot of complexity into its 93 acres. Located in a suburb east of Portland, Oregon, the project not...
Robert and Daryl Davis, the founders of Seaside, Florida, received the 2001 Seaside Prize in a ceremony in December. The award has been given annually since 1993 to individuals or organizations making significant contributions to the quality and...
CNU has released a new report, “Correcting the Record,” which corrects
some of the misinformation spread by pro-sprawl impresario Wendell Cox. The CNU report was released at Rail-Volution, a national transportation and land-use conference at which...
The path has been cleared for Atlantic Station (formerly Atlantic Steel), the $2 billion mixed-use, brownfield project in Midtown Atlanta. Demolition of the old steel mill and remediation of the site is close to complete, and with the final...
Landscape architect David Yocca and his firm Conservation Design Forum of Elmhurst, Illinois, have been hired to design a new urbanist community on an 831-acre site in the small town of Plano, about 50 miles from downtown Chicago. Yocca has...
David Weekly Homes is the latest builder to join neotraditional Avalon Park in east Orlando, Florida. Weekly purchased 90 home sites in the fast-selling project, and will offer homes ranging from $200,000 to $350,000. Weekly is already building in...
Ellen Dunham-Jones was hired to direct the architecture program at Georgia Tech in Atlanta. Dunham-Jones, a charter member of the Congress for the New Urbanism, is leaving her position as associate professor of architecture at the Massachusetts...
Paseo Colorado, a $200 million new urban redevelopment of a failed shopping mall in Pasadena, California, staged its grand opening in October. About 70 shops and restaurants were expected to open in coming months in a tough retail climate. The...
CNU’s year-end membership and fundraising drive is on. Do you know anyone who should be a CNU member but isn’t? A coworker, client, student, or friend? You can give CNU memberships as holiday presents. CNU’s books and videos also make great gifts....
Providence, a 90-acre traditional neighborhood development, has been proposed in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin, a suburb of Madison. The 421-unit project also is designed to include 36,000 square feet of commercial space, a church, a school run by the...
The Planning Commission of the City of Charlotte, North Carolina, has hired local design firm Land Design to create a master plan for the redevelopment of the Second Ward Neighborhood, which covers 11 city blocks (about 114 acres) near the downtown...