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 urban redevelopment has broken ground and construction of homes and retail begins this fall.
The sheer size of Stapleton explodes previous notions of new urbanist infill. The site of Denver’s old airport covers 4,700 acres...
Community by Design: New Urbanism for Suburbs and Small Communities joins a long list of books extolling the virtues of mixed-use, pedestrian-oriented neighborhood planning.
This book, by landscape architects Kenneth Hall and Gerald Porterfield,...
National Geographic now offers a new urbanism primer online that compares the effects of urban and suburban design. An interactive tour allows the user to select images within a main street scene while text explains advantages of transportation,...
The Brookings Institution’s discussion paper “Exposing Urban Legends: The Real Purchasing Power of Central City Neighborhoods” dissects and disproves private marketing data fed to the public about inner city neighborhoods. See www. brookings.edu.
Town Planning Studio is a new joint venture of new urbanist practitioners from the Midwest and the West. The venture is made up of R. John Anderson from Chico, California; Peter Swift from Longmont, Colorado; and Patti Banks, Brian Hendrickson,...
Transit-oriented development makes inroads in a conservative region.
In July, organizations in Idaho's Treasure Valley joined CNU in kicking off
a series of workshops to create a deep local consensus around the New Urbanism. The Treasure Valley...
Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) takes a new urbanist approach with its planned Santa Monica, California, workplace.
The NRDC wants to make its 15,000 sq. ft. building a showcase — not just environmentally, but also in terms of...
The new economy may have foundered, but most new urbanists report that they are as busy as ever.
Though growth has slowed in the national economy, internet firms have crashed, industrial output has declined, and the stock market has floundered,...
No hurdles in sight for the passage of a code that 60 of the state’s largest cities and towns must adopt by 2002.
Wisconsin is the first state in the nation to attempt to set statewide standards for traditional neighborhood development (TND).
Urban Design Associates has published a textbook on pattern books for the Institute of Traditional Architecture. The book describes methods and includes various UDA pattern books, such as Ray Gindroz’s pattern book for Celebration. Pattern books...
The six neighborhoods that make up Baltimore’s Midtown district contains some of the city’s finest residential architecture and many cultural and educational institutions. But the neighborhoods are in decline, rowhouses are dilapidated and there is...
Envision Design of Berkeley, California, won a competition to design the revitalization of Isla Vista, California. Consultants David Sargent of Sargent Town Planning and transportation planners Nelson/Nygaard assisted in the proposal. The team is...