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.
Former HUD Secretary and major builder Kaufman and Broad join forces to construct housing in cities.
Prompted by the wave of revitalization efforts sweeping American cities, Henry Cisneros and Kaufman and Broad have formed a joint venture company...
The Urban Land Institute, whose members consist of the developers who have built suburbia in the last six decades, now recommends that conventional strip centers be converted to urban places. The “reinvention” of commercial strip development can...
Hercules, California, the former site of a massive dynamite works, has grown from about 300 to 26,000 residents in the last quarter century. The conventional suburban municipality has no downtown.
Developers and designers are exploring ways to incorporate vinyl siding into human-scale neighborhoods without destroying the streetscape.
Vinyl siding is being used innovatively in a few newurbanist projects around the country to improve the...
Change in land use practice takes time. It is frustrating to watch an innovative development move forward at a glacial pace, or to see a handful of municipalities adopt new urbanist planning codes — while knowing that mixed-use neighborhoods remain...
Facilitated by a number of start-up businesses and organizations, car-sharing is starting to become available in urban centers around the US, according to USA Today. Cooperatives and car-sharing companies now operate in Boston; Seattle; San...
Urban redevelopment continues to gain momentum in Milwaukee. Beer Line B, a project going up on a former brownfield site on the Milwaukee River, now has 480 new homes completed or under construction. “The area has a flavor of San Francisco, with...
Joe Alfandre, former developer of new urbanist projects Kentlands and Belmont Forest, has been chosen as the co- executive director of the National Town Builders Association (NTBA) in Washington, DC. Neil Takemoto, who served as the executive...
The ever-growing new urbanist movement brings in new voices for four days of intense discussion. What does it take to keep the momentum?
CNU 2000, “The Politics of Place,” drew a record 1,500 architects, planners, activists, government officials...
With patience, traditional craftsmanship, and a love for maximizing space, builder and developer Dan Camp has given new life to the dilapidated Cotton District neighborhood in Starkville, Mississippi.
The Cotton District rebirth beganwith one...
The Local Government Commission has published Streets and Sidewalks, People and Cars: The Citizens’ Guide to Traffic Calming, prepared by Dan Burden of Walkable Communities. The 52-page publication is a hands-on guide for residents who want to...
In a region where full-scale new urbanist neighborhoods are rare, town center revitalization projects are picking up steam.
Southern California is still lacking a good model for large traditional neighborhood development (TND). Playa Vista in Los...