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 Denver area’s first mall redevelopment is already well underway in the City of Englewood. Cinderella City, once one of the region’s premier malls, has been torn down to give way to CityCenter Englewood, a transit-oriented, walkable, mixed-use...
New urbanist principles inform a growing number of large-scale planning efforts.
For the past 10 years, the New Urbanism has been primarily defined by
individual projects, built in reaction to the reigning auto-oriented, single-use planning...
The University of Maryland has named Gerrit Knaap, a nationally-recognized scholar on the economics and politics of land-use planning, to serve as director of research for the university’s new National Center for Smart Growth Research, Education...
Partners for a Livable Western New York, based in Buffalo, has about 60 members, including many who belong to the Congress for the New Urbanism. The group consists mainly of professionals — i.e., architects, planners, traffic engineers, attorneys,...
A four-screen theater in the town center of Southern Village is running movies every Friday and Saturday night on the town green. Moviegoers bring blankets and chairs and are charged three dollars. The event has been very popular and adds energy to...
Narrow streets are not only safer and more pedestrian-friendly, they also cost less. According to recent calculations by a Utah consultant, the cost of resurfacing a 24 ft. road with two inches of asphalt is $45,619 per linear mile. The cost...
Gondolier Press has released The Forgotten Child: Cities for the Well-Being of Children, by Henry L. Lennard and Suzanne H. Crowhurst Lennard. The book explores the failure of the modern city to provide a suitable habitat for its children. Contact...
After several slow years, Middleton Hills near Madison, Wisconsin, is hitting its stride. Last year was the project’s best, with sales of 29 single home lots, plus 8 townhomes and live/work units. Fifty-five units of senior housing were completed....
“It [New Urbanism] is currently a boutique market that appeals to a segment of the home-buying market (empty nesters, singles, young professionals). Unfortunately, there are still many government regulatory and community perception hurdles to...
Rep. Mark Udall (CO) recently introduced the Urban Sprawl and Smart Growth Study Act. The Act requires the Council on Environmental Quality to update previous studies of the economic, environmental and land-use
effects of sprawl; make...
In May, Maryland Gov. Parris Glendening appointed Harriet Tregoning as Special Secretary for Smart Growth, establishing a new cabinet post which will focus exclusively on transportation, land-use, and growth issues.
“The governor created the...
Thousands of local codes nationwide prohibit small lots and blocks, narrow streets, shallow setbacks, a mixture of uses, and other elements of pedestrian-scale neighborhoods. This reality makes it difficult for new urbanist developments to gain...