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.
The Transit Metropolis: A Global Inquiry, by Robert Cervero, compiles case studies spanning five continents to investigate the roles of strategic planning, regulations, urban design, new technologies, and new approaches to government and...
The Collins Center for Public Policy recently formed the Smart Growth Center of Southern Florida to augment Eastward Ho!, a state growth control program that diverts growth in southern Florida from a westward direction, where it threatens the...
Developer Robert Shaw resigned from Post Properties in November, 1998. His new company is Amicus Partners. Shaw founded Columbus Realty Trust, a real estate investment trust that pioneered the construction of apartments in new urbanist infill...
The town center in King Farm, a 440-acre traditional neighborhood development in Rockville, Maryland, is scheduled to begin construction in the spring of 1999. The town center will include a 60,000 square foot grocery store, with an entrance facing...
David Peterson, Managing Director of PricewaterhouseCoopers, coined the phrase “mix, mass, and mesh” to describe characteristics of the “24-hour city” that constitute safe and affordable places to work, play, and reside. The top U.S. real estate...
A charrette was held in September, 1998, to design a new urbanist downtown for Macomb Township, the fastest growing community in the Detroit metropolitan region. The plan, by Gibbs Planning Group, features a township hall, a district court, possibly...
Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU) members made an impressive showing at the Second Annual Partners for Smart Growth Conference, which took place December 15 through 17, 1998, in Austin, Texas. More than 850 developers, public officials, and...
New grants fund projects by new urbanist designers.
A recent round of $507 million in grants confirms that the U.S.
Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is committed to revitalizing public housing using
new urbanist principles....
Setting up a legal framework for a mixed use town center may require the developer to look at malls for inspiration.
Town center is by far the most complex part of a traditional neighborhood development (TND), where the mixed uses converge in a...
New Urbanist philosopher Leon Krier’s new book, Choice or Fate, critiques the architectural excesses of Modernism and presents a workable countervision in the form of graphical plans for the restoration of several European city centers, a design for...
Governing Magazine’s 1998 Public Officials of the Year awards include two mayors who are dedicated proponents of the New Urbanism, John O. Norquist of Milwaukee and Nancy M. Graham of West Palm Beach.
Norquist, a Congress for the New Urbanism...
A unique partnership was formed between Orlando developer Lake Nona Property Holdings, a public school district and a local YMCA. Lake Nona Property Holdings recently broke ground on a 1,000-acre neotraditional development called Northlake Park. Due...