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.
Thirty years ago, Snellville, Georgia, was a small farming town at the crossroads of two highways. In the 1970s and 1980s, when US Highway 78 became a major commuter route into metropolitan Atlanta, the city and county governments encouraged...
The American Planning Association now has a New Urbanism Division. Started by CNU members Rick Bernhardt and Gianni Longo, chairs of the Planners Task Force, it will bring New Urbanism into the APA mainstream. Dues for membership are $20 per year....
By Peter Calthorpe and William Fulton Island Press, California, 2001. 302 pp., Hardcover: $55.00; Paperback: $35.00 At the opening of The Regional City, a group of Salt Lake City civic leaders sit down to figure out how best to accommodate the...
Three major new urbanist town centers are opening in the last quarter of 2000 and the first quarter of 2001. Abacoa Town Center in Jupiter, Florida, Pentagon Row in Arlington, Virginia, and King Farm Town Center in Rockville, Maryland, will be the...
The first tangible results of the state’s push for a new paradigm are becoming visible, but the commitment of some local governments lags behind.
Maryland’s smart growth initiative helped to spark a national debate on land use shortly after it...
Kendall, Florida, has a new urbanist master plan for a new downtown (see January/February 2000 issue) and an ordinance to turn the plan into reality. But the fate of Dadeland Mall, the thriving enclosed mall which lies at the heart of the Downtown...
In the mountainous West, where land is plentiful and people scarce, the New Urbanism has found little application to date. In Idaho, however, the Village at Hidden Springs in Ada County outside Boise is the first attempt at building a walkable town...
David Weekly Homes is the latest builder to join neotraditional Avalon Park in east Orlando, Florida. Weekly purchased 90 home sites in the fast-selling project, and will offer homes ranging from $200,000 to $350,000. Weekly is already building in...
Miramar, Florida, is planning a $130 million, 54-acre town center designed by Torti Gallas & Partners/CHK. The project includes a new city hall, cultural arts center, and library, in addition to 225 apartments, 290,000 square feet of office...
The Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) is running a controversial $1 million ad campaign using sprawl as a reason to limit immigration. The group claims that sprawl is caused, for the most part, by mass immigration. Anti-sprawl groups...
The Town Council of Huntington Township, New York, has selected Ron Stein as the municipality’s first smart growth coordinator. Stein founded the nonprofit group Vision Huntington, which spearheaded an effective campaign to get public officials and...
Historic American Towns along the Atlantic Coast, a book by Warren Boerschenstein of the University of Virginia, surveys more than 140 towns that have survived in relative isolation and features detailed discussions of nine of these human-scale...