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.
American CityVista, a venture between former HUD Secretary Henry Cisneros and builder Kaufman & Broad (see October/November 2000), has begun its first residential development, Lago Vista in San Antonio, Texas. The company plans to build 600...
Category: public open space. Subcategory: plazas and squares.
Editor's Note. This page is the first of a series dedicated to detailing the techniques appearing in The Lexicon of the New Urbanism.
A square is a public space, defined by building...
In Pittsburgh, a public/private partnership is transforming an unusual brownfield site into the city’s largest new residential development in more than 50 years.
Building neighborhoods on abandoned industrial sites is no longer a novelty, but...
A group of foundations focusing on smart growth is undertaking a study of real estate finance cosponsored by the Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU). The Funders Network for Smart Growth and Livable Communities, based in Miami, was founded in 1999...
Leon Krier and Andres Duany are teaching a design studio at Yale University this semester. Students will travel to study the transects in 20 cities and document building types, frontages, and the use of buildings and open space. This information...
“... the New Urbanism draws life from a humanist tradition in civic art, along with an essentially classical idealism. And in stark contrast to the “architectural circles” for which [New York Times architectural critic] Herbert Muschamp speaks, the...
Temple University’s Center for Sustainable Communities recently received a $1.5-million federal grant. University officials hope academic neutrality will foster agreements between competing groups, while developers and environmentalists hope the...
Recent opposition to a development in Suffolk, Virginia, shows the uphill battle that many developers of new urbanist projects face — even in a municipality with progressive zoning provisions. Driver Village, a 45-home subdivision, was narrowly...
The Flag House Courts redevelopment, a Hope VI project in East Baltimore, is one of four winners of the American Institute of Architects’ Honor Award for outstanding regional and urban design. Hope VI is HUD’s program to redevelop public housing....
Oklahoma’s first new urbanist development, the Village at Central Park, is now under construction six blocks from downtown Tulsa. The infill project includes 103 units in brownstone townhomes and loft homes, as well as eight three-story retail...
Italian scholar Gabriele Tag-liaventi is producing a major publication of American new urbanist work. Those interested should send material directly to Tagliaventi, at Universita di Bologna, Facolta di Ingegneria, Istituto di Architettura e...
It’s not every day that new construction gets an award for historic preservation. But in North Carolina, the Historic Preservation Society of Durham gave its George and Mary Pyne Historic Preservation Award to the new urbanist infill development in...