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.
We need to get better at community outreach and engagement because we still have a lot of traction to gain at the local level.
USA Today recently published a travel article on Seaside, Florida, perhaps the most influential new town in recent decades — celebrating the 30th anniversary of its founding. Seaside was the place that proved to many that a mixed-use, walkable town...
The plan calls for investments in the historic core that preserve the quality of its landmark districts and restore the humane scale of streets and parks.
How Woodstock Downtown became the dynamic center of a sprawling Atlanta suburb
The shift away from single-family detached houses and toward higher-density, transit-served neighborhoods is well under way.
The plan for ‘Restoration’ is a more compact traditional neighborhood with its own transit system.
A late September change in Federal Housing Administration standards loosens restrictions on commercial space in residential buildings. The percentage was capped at 25 percent, but the rule allows exceptions up to 35 percent or higher (50 percent...
This year sales in NorthWest Crossing, A 486-acre traditional neighborhood development (TND) in Bend, Oregon, are the highest they have ever been — even before the Great Recession. Although many TNDs are struggling across the US, we are getting...
In a New York Times piece called Republicans to Cities: Drop Dead, Kevin Baker chronicles the history of how the GOP has become geographically divorced from cities. It makes an interesting read in an election when the Republican platform denounces...
The trend toward walkable urban places is helping the residential market in Upstate New York cities, developers reported in Syracuse this week. The conference sponsored by the NYS Conference of Mayors & Municipal Officials and NYS Urban Council...