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.
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...
Addison Circle, a high-density new urbanist development in Addison, Texas, continues to be highly successful. Developer Post Properties announced the complete lease up of phase 2 in April, 2000. Addison Circle now includes 1,070 apartments, 111,000...
A traditional neighborhood development (TND) in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, provides evidence that a walkable community can be popular and have a measurable impact on school traffic.
Mary Scroggs Elementary School in Southern Village has 450...
Maryland Governor Parris N. Glendening (D) has decided that a new campus for the University System of Maryland be housed in three vacant buildings in downtown Hagerstown instead of in a planned suburban building. Anti-sprawl groups applaud the...
The site of a planned new urbanist town in Ada, Michigan, designed by John Anderson and Philip Bess at a 1999 charrette, has changed hands. Ada Holdings LLC, owned by Amway Corporation president Dick DeVos and family, bought the 536- acre parcel...
The Seaside Institute will award its annual Seaside Prize posthumously to the Italian architect Aldo Rossi who died in 1997. In his practice as an architectural theoretician and teacher, Rossi used the city as his central theme. His best known works...
About 200 townhomes have been built in Winchester Greens, a project for low to moderate income residents south of Richmond, Virginia, being developed by the Richmond Better Housing Coalition (RBHC). Winchester Greens is like a little bit of downtown...
Vince Graham and Robert Turner share a formula for success.
Down in the Lowcountry of South Carolina, two young developers are mastering the art and technique of building neighborhoods and towns. Vince Graham and Robert Turner have known each other...