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.
Essayist Bettina Drew explores the American cultural landscape in Crossing the Expendable Landscape, described as a contemporary urban travelogue dealing with the consequences of built environments that fail to reflect regional, historic, and social...
Sprawl control and “smart growth” emerged as mainstream issues in the November elections, when initiatives limiting state funding for sprawl and implementing urban growth boundaries were approved by voters. In preelection barnstorming speeches for...
The new urbanist redevelopment plan for St. Louis Park Town Center was recently submitted for approval to the Metropolitan Council of St. Louis Park, Minnesota, and is expected to be adopted by the end of January. The project’s three and four-storey...
Post Properties and Federal Realty Trust, two real estate investment trusts that have invested heavily in The New Urbanism, have announced a strategic alliance. The companies will jointly develop mixed-use urban projects with “main street retail”...
Leading new urbanists are working together to create a new school of architecture that focuses on traditional architecture and design. The Institute of Traditional Architecture will be based on a formal apprenticeship system similar to the one used...
An analysis by the Texas Transportation Institute shows that road widening has had virtually no impact on the growth of traffic congestion in major urban areas in the last 15 years. The analysis by the Surface Transportation Policy Project (STPP), a...
Northwest Landing, a traditional neighborhood development (TND) in Dupont, Washington, owned by Weyerhaeuser Real Estate Company, closed sales of nearly 200 new homes in 1998, making it the best-selling new-home neighborhood in Pierce County by a...
Many home builders believe that attached garages are necessary from a marketing standpoint, but actual buyer choices at two new traditional neighborhood developments (TNDs) where detached garages are optional call that assumption into question....
Dramatic crime reduction has occurred in two public housing projects designed with new urbanist principles.
Two broad approaches can make safe places. The fortress strategy is exemplified by gated communities. New urbanists take the opposite...
Professional Builder magazine published a recent article highlighting the high sales of several new urbanist projects, citing the appeal of a functioning community and the role of publicity in sales rates. The charrette has proved a key to...
Communities of the Twenty-first Century likely will take the form of compact, pedestrian-oriented villages wired with high-tech communications, according to a recent Los Angeles Times article. Writer David Bloom makes the link between the New...
A 270-acre development proposal in Lake Park, Florida, may be the first new urbanist extension of a neighborhood designed by the Olmstead Brothers, great town planners of the early Twentieth Century. The plan, designed by the Treasure Coast Regional...