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.
A recent survey shows an unexpected population boom in downtowns across the country. The Brookings Institution Center on Urban and Metropolitan Policy and the Fannie Mae Foundation surveyed 24 major U.S. cities and found that all predict an increase...
Dean Brennan and Al Zelinka, two community planners who are writing a book on design for safety and crime reduction, report that the New Urbanism “clearly plays an important role in eliminating fear of crime and the perception of crime.”
The...
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...
A new partnership has been established between TND Advisors LLC, an affiliate of the Traditional Neighborhood Development (TND) Fund, and Hillman Properties Inc., a subsidiary of The Hillman Company, of Pittsburgh, to provide equity capital for TNDs...
In Portland, Oregon, the Westside Max light rail line opened in September, 1998, and looks like a big success. Just two weeks after the 18-mile, $800 million line opened, light rail ridership in Portland was 22 percent above projections. Part of the...
The biggest redevelopment to date of a suburban shopping center into a mixed-use neighborhood may break ground in the spring of 1999 in San Jose, California. Federal Realty Investment Trust, based in Bethesda, Maryland, plans 1,200 residential units...
An Environmental Forum at the fall Board meeting of the Congress for the New Urbanism brought representatives of leading environmental groups together with CNU officials. The participants examined common interests and points of contention between...
CNU recently received funding from the Surdna Foundation to support efforts to mobilize a constituency of critical mass for new urbanist approaches to urban revitalization. Two key projects have been funded: the Implementation Task Force will look...
Vice President Al Gore has joined the ranks of many politicians, including both Republicans and Democrats, who are starting to recognize the benefits of traditional community design. In a speech to the Brookings Institution on September 2, Gore...
What does it take to get a traditional neighborhood development (TND) approved? The answer may be different in every municipality, but in Chesterton, Indiana, a favorable legal framework, educated municipal planners, and a determined developer all...