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.
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...
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...
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”...
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 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...