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.
Shelley Poticha, CNU Executive Director, recently attended a meeting co-sponsored by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the American Farmland Trust, and the National Growth Management Leadership Project in Washington, D.C. Representatives...
Two senior executives in charge of the Celebration project for Disney have struck out on their own. Former Disney vice presidents Don Killoren and Charles Adams have formed
Celebration Associates of Orlando, Florida, and they will offer...
A National Town Builders Association (NTBA) is being formed in Washington, D.C. The NTBA is a project initiated by Neil Takemoto of World Idea Networks and has the backing of town planner Andres Duany. Takemoto has set dues as $3,500 for developers...
Saks Fifth Avenue is planning additional “main street” department stores, after successfully experimenting with smaller, downtown locations in Greenwich, Connecticut, and Charleston, South Carolina. These stores are about a third the size (35,000 to...
Researchers determine that good urban design is the reason why consumers are willing to pay more to live in the Gaithersburg neotraditional project.
A recent George Washington University study shows that consumers are willing to pay $30,000 to $...
The Triangle Transit Authority, which serves the fast-growing Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill area of North Carolina, is planning a $228 million, 34-mile, 16-station rail commuter line. The project will use state-of-the-art, self-propelled, diesel trains...
Common Place: Toward Neighborhood and Regional Design By Douglas S. Kelbaugh, University of Washington Press, 1997. Softcover, 334 pp., $35. Common Place: Toward Neighborhood and Regional Design should be used as a work book — a treatise to...
CNU has entered into a three-year Cooperative Agreement with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Urban and Economic Development Division. This agreement will help CNU expand its work to encourage policy-makers, developers, and communities to...
St. Joe Corp. of Jacksonville, Florida, the largest landholder in the state, announced an agreement in principle October 1 to “combine” with the Arvida Company, a major real estate developer based in Boca Raton, Florida. The acquisition or merger...
New financial agreements have finally cleared the way for the construction of Playa Vista, the troubled but much heralded new urban development in Los Angeles designed by Moule & Polyzoides and Duany Plater-Zyberk. If built as planned, the...
Some supporters of New Urbanism believe that big box stores, typically built of dryvit faced cinderblocks and ranging from 25,000 sq. ft. to 250,000 sq. ft., have no place on traditional main streets. To date, very few such stores have located in...
A comprehensive plan created for Cherokee County, Georgia, located 20 miles north of Atlanta, calls for growth to be channeled into hamlets, villages and neighborhoods. The plan, which uses overlay zoning to create the traditional mixed-use centers...