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.
More than 775 people attended the Congress for the New Urbanism VI in Denver April 30 through May 3, an increase of 150 percent from last year. This growth in attendance caused a few uncomfortably crowded sessions, but also is a sign of the amazing...
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...
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...
A high-density mixed-use infill project began construction in Traverse City, Michigan. The 3.2-acre Rivers Edge development rebuilds a brownfield site by using up to $35 million in private investment and $750,000 in public funds. The city also has...
As a young associate in the real estate department of a large law firm, I was taught that the job of the developer’s attorney, first and foremost, is to protect the developer — to give the developer as much power over the community as the law, and...
The most intense concentration of traditional neighborhood developments (TNDs) in North America is in Markham, Ontario. The suburban Toronto municipality of 150,000 residents adopted a new urbanist planning policy in the early 1990s. Four new...
New Urbanism provides alternative vision for growth.
A wave of recent anti-sprawl initiatives and legislation is intended to promote compact, infill development in a number of states, particularly in the Northeast. While the New Urbanism is...