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.
President Bush has nominated Emil Frankel for the position of Assistant Secretary of Transportation for Transportation Policy. Frankel currently serves on the board of directors of the Surface Transportation Policy Project (STPP) and is an advisor...
A new urbanist plan unites public officials, citizens, and developers over a contentious transit-oriented project in the San Francisco Bay area.
The extensive surface parking around the transit station in Pleasant Hill, California, has been the...
The nation’s fastest-growing suburban centers also provide opportunities for new urbanist development.
The populations of Irving and Plano, both suburbs of Dallas, have grown by 7,211 percent and 5,909 percent respectively since census figures...
Partners for Livable Communities released The Livable City: Revitalizing Urban Communities. The report includes facts, profiles and best practices. Contact: www.livable.com.
The Planetizen website (www. planetizen.com) has named the all-time top 20 books on urban planning. The list is topped by The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs, followed by Lewis Mumford’s The City in History. Among the most...
Research at the University of Southern California finds that demographics and social change are brewing up tremendous demand for "dense, walkable neighborhoods."
Researchers at the University of Southern California have released a study that...
In a clear break with the “bigger is better” philosophy of
street design, the Urban Land Institute (ULI) has released a revamped third edition of its guide to residential street design. Residential Streets attempts to demonstrate that streets in...
The town remains a remarkable and influential achievement two decades after its founding.
In many ways Seaside, Florida, is antithetical to what many would consider
to be the ideal new urbanist icon. It is a “greenfield” project, far from any...
Duany Plater-Zyberk & Co. (DPZ) has been hired by a private landowner to design a redevelopment of a 40-acre parcel in the edge city of Tysons Corner, Virginia. According to the Washington Post, the planned development may include high-rise...
The City of Lenexa, Kansas, has signed a letter of intent with the Gainesville, Florida-based Haile Group to develop a new urbanist city center. A preliminary plan for the 62-acre site has been created by urban designer Michael Morrissey and Haile...
Work has begun on the commercial town center in Lowry, the redevelopment of an 1,866-acre Air Force base on the Denver/Aurora town line in Colorado. A 50,000 sq. ft. Al-bertson’s supermarket anchors the town center, which will include 118,000 square...
New urbanist design firm Correa Valle Valle of Coral Gables, Florida, has won two smart growth awards for its charrette and plan for a redevelopment of a historic industrial neighborhood in Asheville, North Carolina.