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.
SprawlWatch Clearinghouse offers “How Smart Growth Can Stop Sprawl: A Briefing Guide for Funders,” by David Bollier. Contact: (202) 332-7000 or see www. sprawlwatch.org.
The National Town Builders Association (NTBA) has launched the New Economy Town Collaborative, a group of developers and consultants dedicated to investing in and developing mixed-use centers in urban areas. The collaborative is looking to develop...
Save the date: CNU X will be held in Miami Beach, Florida, at the Loews Miami Beach Hotel, June 13 to 16, 2002. Thanks to the annual boost provided by the New York Congress this past June, CNU membership is at an all-time high. Our 2,600 members are...
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...
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...
Van Meter Williams Pollack of San Francisco has hired Kevin Gardiner, an urban designer formerly with Malcom Carpenter Associates.
A new group, Pennsylvania Association of New Urbanists, has begun meeting. Among the members are state Rep. Robert Freeman, who authored a traditional neighborhood development section to the state Municipalities Planning Code, town planners Thomas...
A Seaside historic district? The oldest buildings in the first new urbanist town are only 20 years old, but the idea is not as absurd as it sounds, according to attorney Doris Goldstein, who advises the Seaside Development Company. The earliest...
In Atlanta — as in most US metropolitan areas — traffic congestion is getting far worse, imposing real costs on every driver, according to a recent New York Times editorial by Paul Krugman. Moreover, commuters who drive to work during the city’s six...