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.
The forces favoring walkable urbanism — including, transit, planners, and the real estate market — appear to be in a battle with Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) for supremacy in Tyson's Corner. Four Metro stations on DC's Silver Line...
In the first regional, comprehensive study of mixed-use urban centers, Christopher Leinberger coins a clever term, WalkUPs (walkable, urban places). Leinberger examines 43 WalkUPs in the Washington, DC, region, most of which have been created in...
The cost of living index from the Council for Community and Economic Research was recently updated for 300 urban areas, and — no surprise — the New York boroughs of Manhattan and Brooklyn came out on top. Honolulu, San Francisco, San Jose, Queens,...
Toward Sustainable Communities calls for ecological advances and permanently affordable housing in new urbanist developments.
The Denny Triangle north of downtown Seattle was for years a nondescript collection of parking lots and cheap motels from the era of the Seattle Expo.
The City wanted to let pedestrians and vehicles mix in a somewhat gritty setting. ADA requirements and corporate attitudes complicated the effort.
Now StreetScape Development LLC is planning to build a larger, transit-oriented development in the same 20,000-person village.
With such a sharp geographical divide, “basic issues like sprawl and land use turn into culture war proxies."
Less parking and more car-sharing would help make transit-oriented development more successful.
Advocates are sponsoring art activities throughout the US and trying to determine their impact.