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.
Since its acquisition of Columbus Realty Trust, Post Properties is moving ahead rapidly with the design and construction of new urbanist planning projects. The publicly traded real estate investment trust now has two regional headquarters: Post East...
The town of Markham shows why Canada is way ahead of the U.S. when it comes to “smart growth,” i.e. compact, incremental development. While innovative programs in states like Maryland try to rein in leapfrog sprawl, Markham simply opens up a new...
A well-designed public realm has potential to boost
property values and tax revenues.
n suburbia, where the public realm serves automobiles rather than pedestri ans, protection of property values depends on strict separation of uses, landscape...
The latest subdivision regulations in Johnson City, Tennessee, allow streets of 24 feet curb to curb, according to Eric Thomas Iversen, the head of long range planning. Streets include an 18- inch gutter on both sides, so road pavement is actually...
The Visual Preference Survey (VPS), created by Nelessen & Associates of Princeton, New Jersey, is a powerful tool to find out what kind of development residents prefer. Shown images of sprawl and compact traditional development, a cross section...
A new forum for discussing New Urbanism and CNU, as well as posting announcements and messages for other members has now been launched on our web site (www.
cnu.org). Members can access this service by registering a password to enter the “members”...
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...
More than 72 percent of citizens in Windsor, California, voted to enact an urban growth boundary (UGB) in January. Windsor’s UGB secures a boundary for 20 years. During the last year an a half, UGBs have been adopted in the San Francisco Bay Area...
At their Winter Board Meeting in San Francisco the first week of February, the CNU Board made significant changes. New leadership for the organization (the Executive Committee) was chosen and two new Board positions were added.
After two years of...