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.
Climate change has been back in the news lately due to Hurricane Sandy. Urban designer and former director of the National Endowment for the Arts Jeff Speck, author of the recently published Walkable City, makes the case that smart growth is a key...
Low-density suburbs underperform in the housing crash — and low-income city neighborhoods also suffer. The overall pattern is reversed from the early 90s recession.
In this important new book, influential planner Jeff Speck lays out a General Theory of Walkability, which holds that “to be favored, a walk has to satisfy four main conditions: it must be useful, safe, comfortable, and interesting.” He emphasizes...
A recent blog on the online magazine Salon slammed new suburban town centers as phony, pale imitations — but cities should be thankful for them.
Satellite historic towns and cities that have languished for decades because they have been swept over by sprawl are now getting a second life as new urban centers. This report in the October-November 2012 issue of Better! Cities & Towns looks...
A survey of 20,000 prospective house buyers found that "Neighborhood Street Appeal" ranked number two on the list of important features, just below "Better Location," according to Housing Perspectives email newsletter by James Wentling Architects....
In Edgewater, Florida, the first new town in the US is planned with a streetcar, that we are aware of, in modern times. Better! Cities & Towns reports in detail on the development called Restoration in the October-November 2012 issue. The master...
William Fulton at Citiwire argues that municipalities can no longer afford sprawl. "Conventional suburban communities, by contrast, are much more expensive to build and serve. In North Carolina, a study by the City of Charlotte found that a fire...
Wall Street and institutional investors have found it easier in the past to pour large amounts of capital into the simplified building types of sprawl. Now that there is a stronger market demand for walkable places, researcher Christopher Leinberger...
The 25-acre property of a trucking company will be redeveloped into a mixed-use urban center in northwest Portland. Con-way Inc., started in Portland, now based in Ann Arbor, MI, still retains office space on the site. The company will continue to...
Prince George's County, Maryland, has missed out on much of the DC area's transit-oriented development (TOD) — despite having 13 Metro stations. A county bill sponsored by councilmember Mel Franklin would exempt development projects within a half...