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.
Firm wants to finance apartments near town centers.
Kensington Marquette Partners of Chicago, a firm that manages assets from several state teachers’ pension funds, is seeking to invest in apartments in traditional neighborhood developments (TNDs...
The nation’s broadest implementation of new urbanist zoning ordinances is underway in Wisconsin, where a 1999 smart growth law mandates that all cities, towns, and villages with a population of more than 12,500 adopt a model TND ordinance by January...
The state and Baltimore County are partners in the Owings Mills Town Center, a transit-oriented development.
Owings Mills, a rapidly growing “edge city” in Baltimore County, is about to get a main street and town center on what is currently 46...
Mockingbird Station, a 10-acre transit-oriented development in Dallas, is under construction and scheduled to open in 2000. Designed by RTKL, the development includes 216 loft apartments, an eight screen movie theater, and more than 90 shops and...
HomeStyles.com, the company behind the TND Series and the website TNDhomes.com, has issued a call for house plans to architects and designers. HomeStyles.com seeks plans for simple, elegant starter homes with modest floor plans and live/work...
Tyson’s Corner, Virginia, has two major malls, 35 million square feet of office space (more than many large cities), and represents the apex of sprawl in the Washington, D.C., area. It would be hard to find a more pedestrian unfriendly place, but...
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...
In New Castle County, Delaware, the proposed TND Whitehall is in development limbo after four years of extensive negotiations. Designed by Angelo Alberto, Whitehall would consist of three compact villages on 2,047 acres, with almost 5,000 dwelling...
After much controversy and a seven-month delay, Nelessen & Associates of Princeton, New Jersey, have completed a Visual Preference Survey in Worcester County on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. The firm will draft a growth plan for the 300,000-acre...