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.
Suffolk, Virginia, planners developed an ordinance that uses “incentive zoning” to apply new urbanist planning and design principles, according to a recent editorial in The Virginian-Pilot. The city’s rapid growth and increasing residential land...
The Conservation Law Foundation recently issued City Routes,City Rights, an 80-page guidebook for urban grassroots activists, educators, and local policymakers concerned with improving transportation and environmental quality in urban areas. The...
Joseph Barnes, former town architect at Disney’s Celebration, was hired as vice president and general manager overseeing day-to-day operations at I’On, a 243-acre traditional neighborhood development (TND) in Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina. Barnes was...
Richard Bernhardt, director of planning for the City of Orlando for 17 years, resigned from that position to start a specialty town planning and urban design office for EDAW, a nationwide design firm. The studio, based in Orlando, will focus on new...
Who says traditional design has to be expensive? The Neighborhood Housing Development Corp. (NHDC) of Gainesville built homes designed by architect Robert Orr of New Haven, Connecticut, for $42 square foot, according to David Herkalo, NHDC director...
The developer of Carpenter Village in Cary, North Carolina, was able to convince local officials that the project’sTND design would result in a 50 percent reduction in vehicular trips. The assertion was supported by research by Cary’s traffic...
After a decade, Joel Embry is finally seeing his dream of building a walkable town becoming a reality.
Challenges such as financing and approvals often put new urbanist projects on hold for years, but few developers have persisted as long as Joel...
Everyone is writing about sprawl and the New Urbanism these days. Time magazine recently described the “The Brawl Over Sprawl” in an article
reporting on a host of initiatives on local, state, and national levels to curb suburban development....
The Town of Huntersville, North Carolina is looking for a developer with significant experience in the New Urbanism to redevelop a 32-acre former mill site situated along the planned rapid transit corridor linking the town to nearby Charlotte. A...
Citizens for a Better Environment has created a community preference survey that helps local government officials and planners determine how citizens want their communities to look. Residents are shown slides of different developments and building...
n The Design Center for American Urban Landscape at the University of Minnesota hosted a conference from January 21-23 on “Reframing the 1945-1965 Suburb.” Many CNU members participated in the discussions which examined the social, physical,...
A Florida agency sets an example for government planners that want to foster the New Urbanism.
Some 500 regional planning organizations operate in the United States. Up until 10 years ago, the Treasure Coast Regional Planning Council...