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.
The downtown of Celebration a neotraditional town in Osceola County, Florida, is still going through some growing pains. Although many of the businesses — particularly restaurants — have been successful, about a half dozen have failed, the...
CNU will collaborate with local and federal agencies on the redevelopment of Washington, D.C.’s, underused southern shore. Between the Southeast Freeway and the Anacostia River in Washington, D.C., five short blocks from the U.S. Capitol, is a...
Riverside, a traditional neighborhood development (TND) in Atlanta, Georgia, was entirely leased one and one half years after the project opened. Developed by Post Properties and designed by Duany Plater-Zyberk & Company, Riverside consists of...
I’On I’On is a 243-acre, 759-unit TND in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina. Vince Graham and his father, Tom Graham, are codevelopers. Geoff Graham, Vince’s brother, is the project manager. The master plan is by Duany Plater-Zyberk & Company (DPZ...
Building a balanced neighborhood requires walking a fine line between implementing new urbanist principles and anticipating market demand. An analysis of the mix of housing types in selectednew urbanist communities highlights two aspects of this...
Working in traditional neighbor-hoods pushes two companies to build with an eye on the whole street and to collaborate more closely with planners and developers. Houses built by David WeekleyHomes and Saussy Burbank in new urbanist projects in...
Colorado’s Republican Governor Bill Owens has unveiled a proposal to curb growth, “Smart Growth: Colorado’s future.” The plan’s four main objectives are to preserve open space by giving tax credits to landowners who preserve wildlife habitat; to...
Pasadena, California, is the latest city to join the movement to replace dying shopping malls with mixed-use development. Plaza Pasadena, an enclosed mall built in the 1970s, covers a three- block area in the heart of downtown and obliterates one...
Registrations are flowing in for CNU 2000: The Politics of Place. We recommend you register early: Hotels are in hot demand, and inexpensive early registration for the conference ends May 15. If you haven't received your conference brochure, please...
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...
More than 250 planning and design , educators, and public policy makers gathered in February for the conference “Urbanisms: New and Other.” Hosted by the University of California at Berkeley’s College of Environmental Design, the conference was...