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.
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,...
American Urban Typologies: Key West, Florida, by Miami architect Erick Valle, explains and dissects the building and street designs of one of America’s best-loved towns. The book is well-researched and beautifully illustrated. Contact: Correa Valle...
Work by John Holtzclaw, as reported in the July/August 1997 issue of New Urban News, demonstrated that vehicle miles traveled per household drops drastically in high-density urban areas. That work has become the basis for the location-efficient...
A real estate market poll sponsored by the Los Angeles Times shows a surprising level of preference for the types of amentities offered by new urbanist projects.
Rosemary Beach, a 105-acre traditional neighborhood development (TND) in Walton County, Florida, continues to rack up impressive sales. Out of 195 lots available so far, 145 have been sold. Lot sale prices have ranged from $70,000 to more than a...
The Great Good Place: Cafes, Coffee Shops, Community Centers, Beauty Parlors, General Stores, Bars, Hangouts and How They Get You Through the Day By Ray Oldenburg Marlowe & Company, New York, 1989, 1997 Second Edition. Softcover, 296 pp...
The Florida Keys, a 150-mile-long chain of tiny islands at the southernmost tip of the state, were under such development pressure in the early 1990s that the county placed strict limits on growth through the year 2002. Developers held vested rights...
At the Winter meeting of the Council of Task Force Chairs and the Board of Directors, the Board approved a merger of the Principles & Policies Task Force with the Case Studies Task Force. The new committee will be called the “Best Practices Task...
Back when the federal and state governments were busy building freeways through cities, a neighborhood in Midtown Memphis was demolished to make way for Interstate 40. The highway was never completed through that part of town, and Memphis officials...
Volume II of the TND Series home plan books for traditional neighborhood developments is available directly from HomeStyles, at a price of $30 for a single copy or $50 for two, by calling (888) 505-1001. HomeStyles is publishing and coediting the...
A recent letter to the Chapel Hill News, in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, thanked Southern Village developer D.R. Bryan for his “ generosity and vision” in donating a piece of land for a church. “Southern Village will be a lovely development in...