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.
Seven cities along U.S. Route 1 in southern Florida have pooled their resources to revitalize a 15-mile section of the ailing coastal highway. The cities, Riviera Beach, Lake Park, North Palm Beach, Palm Beach Gardens, Juno Beach, Jupiter, and...
A new urbanist town was planned in Ada, Michigan, to be built on a 536-acre farm and former gravel quarry. Most of the 800 units are planned to be built in the former quarry, with the 300-acre farm remaining mostly open space. The project, designed...
Beat Kahli, the developer of Avalon Park, a 1,860-acre TND east of Orlando, Florida, is taking an unusual approach to expanding the project’s fledgling town center. In October, 1999, Kahli announced that he was willing to invest in entrepreneurs who...
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) announced $571 million in Hope VI program grants to redevelop public housing in 21 cities. A number of these projects will use new urbanist design to create new, mixed-income neighborhoods...
Charter of the New Urbanism: Region/Neighborhood, District, and Corridor/Block, Street, and Building
By the Congress for the New Urbanism McGraw Hill, New York, 1999. Large paperback, 194 pp., $49.95. Contact: 415-495-2255. Every new urbanist should have a copy of the Charter book. Critics should have a copy, too, so that they really know...
The development of farmland, forest, and other open space accelerated rapidly in the 1990s, according to recent government figures. The rate of “greenfield” development was more than three million acres a year from 1992 to 1997 – double the rate of...
The New Urbanism looks to defunct malls as possible sites for infill
development
Most cities have at least one “ghost” mall, a once-thriving enclosed mall turned boarded-up eyesore. It may have have been brought down by a bigger and flashier...
The previous millennium saw the design and construction of the world’s great cities and cathedrals. New York City, arguably the greatest metropolis at the end of the second millennium A.D., was a wilderness in 1626 when European settlers purchased...
Walgreen Co. has signed an agreement with the City of Chicago to follow new urban design guidelines in the construction of 35 Walgreens drugstores in the city during the next two years. The guidelines are designed to prevent construction of suburban...
Stephen Roulac, a real estate consultant, economist, and “futurist” frequently covers the New Urbanism on his radio show, Stephen Roulac Property Conversation. The show is broadcast every Tuesday at 12 noon on WALE AM 990, serving 3.5 million...
Lend Lease Real Estate Investments Inc. and PricewaterhouseCoopers recently published Emerging Trends in Real Estate 2000, which continues to promote the “24-hour cities” concept as the key to profitable long-term real estate investments. The annual...
n The first residents will move into Austin Ranch in The Colony, Texas, in the spring of 2000. The 5,000-unit project is planned by RTKL, Calthorpe Associates, and BGO Architects. The first phase includes 548 apartment units near the future mixed-...