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.
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...
Norton Commons, a TND in Louisville, Kentucky, has broken ground after four years of design and approval. The 600-acre site will include 2,800 new residences, retail, and a 20-acre commercial office campus. Triad Development Co. of Louisville is the...
Montebello Village is a 36-acre TND designed at a recent charrette and scheduled to break ground this fall in Greenville, South Carolina. The design by Alberto & Associates of Haddonfield, New Jersey, with architect David Mayernik, proposes 110...
Lennertz Coyle Associates of Portland has begun planning the first new urbanist community in Wyoming on the site of a 329-acre ranch in Teton County. The county has purchased the site with the goal of reducing the deficit of affordable housing in...
The planning commission in Woodford County, Kentucky, recently approved both a plan for a TND extension of Versailles, the county’s biggest town, and a proposed industrial park, also with new urbanist design.
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,...
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...
The Local Government Commission in Sacramento, California, has published an expanded and revised edition of Building Livable Communities: A Policymaker’s Guide to Infill Development, first released in 1995. The handbook includes a new chapter on...