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.
Architectural firm Robert Orr & Associates (ROA) of New Haven, Connecticut, has completed a vision plan for the improvement of downtown West Hartford, Connecticut. The city administration had been introduced to the New Urbanism by architect...
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...
Duany Plater-Zyberk & Company has designed the Life magazine Dream House for 2000. The Lifespan House, as the dwelling is called, is under construction in I’On, a traditional neighborhood development in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina. Designed...
The Environmental Journalism Center has published Covering Urban Sprawl: Rethinking the American Dream, a primer for journalists on the social, economic, and
environmental impacts of sprawl, by David Goldberg of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution....
At the Fall task force meeting, CNU decided to reorganize the task forces. We have grown in membership and initiatives, and are adapting to these changes. A new format for task forces will make getting involved easier and more rewarding. We will...
Construction began on the Fruitvale Transit Village in Oakland, California, in November. The $100 million, mixed-use project is centered on the Fruitvale Bay Area Rapid Transit station. A retail and entertainment paseo will replace a current parking...
The completed renovation of a nursery building from the 1920s gives Historic Malbis in Daphne, Alabama, an architectural focal point and a link to the Greek farmers who first settled on the site in the early 1900s. The 2,500 square-foot building...
Washington, D.C., has some good examples of new urbanist infill housing. Parkside, in the Northeast section of the city, shows that affordable new urbanist housing can be built on a strict budget. The 26-acre site currently includes townhomes,...
A study of about 200 school sites in South Carolina concludes that schools built in the last two decades discourage children from walking to school and contribute to urban sprawl. In Wait for the Bus: How Lowcountry School Site Selection and Design...
As the nation’s largest financier of commercial and residential real estate, Bank of America wields considerable influence in the market, and the bank now claims it wants to use that influence to make the market more attentive to environmental...