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.
An obscure requirement of the 1997 Standard Building Code has temporarily stalled home construction in Longleaf, a TND in Odessa, Florida, reports developer Frank Starkey. Thirteen homes were already out of the ground when the local building...
A new research center on the Florida Atlantic University (FAU) campus in the new urbanist community Abacoa in Jupiter, Florida, will be devoted to studying the physical and social effects of new urbanist design. FAU’s Joint Center for Environmental...
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...
Public transportation ridership has risen to a level not seen since 1960. New statistics from the American Public Transportation Association reveal that Americans took 9 billion trips on mass transit in 1999, up from a low of 6.5 billion trips in...
The Department of Housing and Urban Development is launching Design Advisor, a web-based tool for community development organizations building affordable housing. The goal of the program is to improve design literacy and help community organizations...
On the subject of dysfunctional zoning: Karrie Hanson, a resident of the historic town of Westfield, New Jersey, reports that the town’s zoning regulations jeopardize porches. The problem is that zoning rules are based on the footprint of a house –...
Dave Mayfield, developer of Afton Village in Concord, North Carolina, and landscape architect Richard Burck visited cities across the Carolinas and Georgia to survey and measure porches and to discover what elements create the right balance between...
A new CNU report, still unreleased at press time, shows that the 350 to 600 dead and dying malls in the United States offer prime new urbanist redevelopment opportunities.
The report, co-written by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), the Harvard...
ServMart, a Chicago area firm, has developed a retail concept that provides many services — e.g. dry cleaning, mail services, copying/faxing, video rental, photo processing, repairs, tailoring, flowers — in a single small location. The firm makes...