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 U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) recently announced its second round of Homeownership Zone grants, awarding $18 million to five cities. After state, local and private funds are factored in, financing for these projects...
Projects will test whether environmentally sensitive building practices are compatible with pedestrian-oriented, human-scale design.
ustainable development” in the U.S. often focuses on reduced environmental impact of buildings by cutting energy...
Looney Ricks Kiss, a Memphis-based architecture firm, now has an office in Princeton, New Jersey, the result of a merger with Community Planning & Research. Looney Ricks Kiss, well-known for its neotraditional home designs in Harbor Town,...
Software from Criterion of Portland, Oregon, evaluates projects and neighborhoods for factors such as pedestrian orientation, transportation efficiency, affordability and resource efficiency. The New Urbanism inspired plan above scores better than...
St. Joe Corp., the largest landowner in Florida and headed by former Disney executive Peter Rummell, is gearing up to build traditional neighborhood developments (TNDs) on large tracts on the Florida Panhandle.
It seems that Rummell, who was in...
A 100-acre parcel that is the site of a planned neotraditional development called Spring Valley in Blacksburg, Virginia, is for sale at a price of $1.55 million, or $7,750 per lot. The project is reportedly approved and permitted, but Spring Valley...
Accessory apartments — i.e. units over garages, “granny flats,” carriage homes — represent a big question mark in traditional neighborhood developments (TNDs). Often they are permitted to accompany every single detached home, and so could raise...
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,...
The Media Store sponsored by World Idea Networks offers videos, books and slides on all aspects of traditional neighborhood development and projects nationwide. Contact: (202) 518-2800.
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....