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.
CNU is now taking orders for the first edition of Charter, a book of 27 essays and commentary which expand on the principles outlined in the Charter of the New Urbanism, the guiding document of this revolution in the way cities are designed, built,...
A recent New York Times article featured the New Urbanism as an antidote to the physical and emotional isolation encountered by teenagers living in suburban tract developments such as Littleton, Colorado. Typical suburban developments, with their...
Construction began this spring on Longleaf, a 568-acre traditional neighborhood development (TND) in New Port Richey, Florida. The project was developed by the Longleaf Development Company and designed by Geoffrey Farrell and Armando Montero. The...
A new study in support of transit was presented by the conservative Free Congress Foundation at the recent Congress for the New Urbanism conference. The study examines the percentage of trips that transit carries in comparison to the trips for which...
Middleton Hills recently planted its central wetlands park, which will be a major amenity for the 149-acre TND in Madison, Wisconsin. Most of the park will be marshes and ponds ringed by walking trails and grass. Active recreation includes a soccer...
The Town Group plans to break ground this fall on Liberty, a 3,000-acre traditional neighborhood development (TND) in Riverside County, California. Designed by Cooper Robertson, the project is a series of seven villages on the edge of a lake, each...
The City of Aspen, Colorado, recently approved a $1 million revitalization of three downtown blocks in response to a citizen- initiated plan to revamp parking and encourage pedestrian use of downtown. Design Workshop, a landscape architecture and...
As the debate over suburban sprawl heats up nationwide, the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Surface Transportation Policy Project have released a timely book. Once There Were Greenfields: How Urban Sprawl is Undermining America’s...
Correction: an article on page 17 of the March/April 1999 issue misidentified the designers of Concord Village and Eagle Creek in Indianapolis. They are: Tise, Hurwitz & Diamond Inc. and Clyde E. Woods & Associates.
A new bimonthly publication for new traditional neighborhoods, The Town Paper, seeks to make potential homebuyers more comfortable with the traditional neighborhood development (TND) concept by offering them residents’ perspectives on TNDs. Through...
Market Square in Kentlands, Gaithersburg, Maryland, is emerging as the latest sizable town center in a new urbanist project. As of June, 1999, a total of 183,000 square feet of retail space had been leased in Market Square, including restaurants, an...
Construction could begin as early as this fall on 4,000- acre Southwood, the first of several planned traditional neighborhood developments by the St. Joe Company, Florida’s largest private landowner. Designed by Dick Galehouse of Sasaki Associates...