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.
In Michigan, an edge city is trying to become more like a real city.
If ever a place could be classified as a landmark of suburbia, it would be the Northland Mall in Southfield, Michigan. Built in 1954, it was the first enclosed suburban...
A new smart growth law in Wisconsin, passed by the state legislature in October 1999, contains two components that specifically promote new urbanist development. The law was written by 1000 Friends of Wisconsin, and requires the University of...
Homestyles.com (formerly Homestyles Pub-
lishing), the people behind the TND Series of neotraditional home plans, has launched TNDhomes.com, an electronic gateway to home plans and traditional neighborhood development. The web site includes most of...
The Round, a transit-oriented development in Beaverton, Oregon, remains in development limbo (see July/August 1999 issue). Developer BCB Group has not been able to secure financing, and the City of Beaverton now has taken legal measures to force BCB...
Abacoa has sold 525 homes since it opened in the summer of 1997. “Our home sales have picked up, because all of our amenities are falling into place,” says Nader Salour, president of Abacoa Development Company. In a large- scale TND like Abacoa, all...
I’On in Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina, was recently given the 1999 Stewardship Award with Full Recognition by the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources. The award recognizes projects for successfully protecting natural resources through...
By Randall Arendt American Planning Association, Planning Advisory Service Report No. 487/488, 1999. Softcover, 144 pp., $34.00; PAS Subscribers, $17.00. ISBN 1-884829-33-3 Heritage neighborhoods like Arden, Delaware, Wyomissing,...
Editor’s note: The following is based in part on the article “Financing New Urbanism “ by Christopher B. Leinberger and Robert Davis, published in 1999 in MIT’s architectural journal Thresholds.
Alvarado stands out from other redevelopment...
New urbanist project will take housing production to a new level.
The Stapleton Airport redevelopment in Denver is the largest urban infill project in the US, according to developer Forest City. Certainly, the plans call for one of the most...
Flush with the success of his first new urbanist project, Vermillion, developer Nate Bowman is now moving forward with two transit-oriented developments (TODs). Bowman was selected as the developer of Anchor Mill, a 32-acre site, in a public/private...
Information and materials on appropriate projects are being sought for a book about town centers and main streets. Author Chuck Bohl of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill will focus on the urban design and development challenges of...
CNU has initiated a multi-year study of dead and dying malls. The first phase of this study is being undertaken by a studio course at the Harvard Graduate School of Design and Kennedy School of Government. The class is studying malls in Los Angeles...