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 lunch meeting, attended by more than 500 people, brought
both a clash of philosophies and a realization that the two groups share common interests. The ULI’s spring conference was held in Denver the same week as CNU VI, which created the...
Editor’s note: This is the second of a two-part series dealing with cutting costs in building a traditional neighborhood development (TND). The first, which appeared in the May/June 1998 issue, dealt with home construction issues. This article...
Recent articles in two major dailies, the Seattle Times (April 4 and 11) and the Chicago Tribune (June 20), show that the mainstream press is becoming more sophisticated about the New Urbanism. Both articles were prompted by new urbanist...
The New Urbanism is having a significant impact on production home building in North America, but much of that impact is superficial — phony marketing of “community” and attempts to create a traditional “look” with architectural clutter, for example...
“An argument can be made that the new towns contribute to the further dispersion and deterioration of the core.” —Architect Harvey Gantt (May, 1998)
“Instead of focusing all of our energies on building new neotraditional towns, we should...
A split-rate property tax that assesses land at a higher rate than buildings can help to encourage infill development and fight sprawl, according to Rick Rybeck, a planner for the District of Columbia Department of Public Works. In a paper, Rybeck...
In Germantown, Tennessee — just east of Memphis — a custom plan book “was a major factor in accelerating sales” in a 22-acre, 90-lot neotraditional project called Rowan Oak, says architect Brad Shapiro of Looney Ricks Kiss (LRK) of Memphis....
The Seaside Prize will be awarded May 30 jointly to Peter Calthorpe, Elizabeth Moule, Stefanos Polyzoides and Daniel Solomon — all of whom are founders of the Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU). The prize is annually awarded by the Seaside...
After a slow first year and a better second year, Fairview Village in Fairview, Oregon, is hitting its stride. Home sales are up in the 88-acre traditional neighborhood development (TND): there were 20 in 1996 and more than 40 in 1997. Sixty home...
Well before the master planning of Civano or the conception of Coffee Creek, or even the term “New Urbanism” was coined, developer John Clark dreamed of building Haymount, an environmentally sensitive TND in Caroline County, Virginia. Eight years...
Editor’s note: this is the first of a two part series on how to keep costs down when building a new urbanist project. The first article covers home construction issues. The next will focus on density and infrastructure.
Most of the early,...
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