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 nation’s largest charitable foundation dedicated to health issues, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, has funded a new, $24.5-million project that links health and smart growth principles. Active Living Through Design, to be headquartered at...
Yet problems persist with acceptance and service, particularly in greenfield developments. The bus is the most frequently used mode of public transportation in the US today, but in transit-oriented development planning the bus tends to play...
Andres Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, pioneers of the New Urbanism, received the third annual Vincent Scully Prize at the National Building Museum December 16. The first two awards were given to architectural historian Scully and urban critic...
South Street Cerritos, a 76,000 sq. ft., high-end town center opened in December, 2001, in Cerritos, California. Designed as a main street by Perkowitz+Ruth Architects, the project connects to a 155,000 square foot Target which opened in 2000.
Duany Plater-Zyberk & Co. (DPZ) has recently undertaken several new urbanist retrofits of conventional communities already under construction. In the firm’s first foray inside the Charlotte, North Carolina, city limits, DPZ conducted a charrette...
Federal Small Business Administration loans support sprawl, according to a lawsuit filed by environmentalists. Friends of the Earth and the Forest Conservation Council analyzed SBA loans in the Washington, DC, area during the last three years and...
Edwards Construction Co. was awarded a contract to build a four-story, 100,000 sq. ft. building with 51 rental apartments above commercial in the town center of Avalon Park, near Orlando, Florida. Construction bids for a 8,000 sq. ft. medical center...
Since 1996, CNU has been working with the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to reform the design of public housing. That partnership is about to produce a major tool to promote new urbanist principles: the HOPE VI design manual,...
Developers of downtown Silver Spring, Maryland, have temporarily given up on luring a major cinema chain as part of the city’s million-plus sq. ft. new urban redevelopment. Still, developers say they remain confident, citing the Discovery...
Codevelopers Leyland Development Co. and East Beach Renaissance — together East Beach Co. — signed a letter of intent with the city of Norfolk, Virginia, to break ground on the $200 million East Beach project. It appears that after years of site...
According to Joe Barker of the development partnership Nashville Urban Venture LLC, the Gulch Neighborhood is the single largest redevelopment project in Nashville’s history. Strategically located between the downtown business and entertainment...
In several new urban communities, accessory dwelling units are strong sellers and offer benefits to both home owners and developers. Accessory dwelling units (ADUs) appear under many aliases — granny flats, garage apartments, carriage houses,...