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.
To get things built, new urbanist designers often must compromise their design ideals — frequently filtering walkable street plans through conventional traffic engineering standards and mindsets. Stapleton in Denver, Colorado, one of the nation's...
The growing number of people living alone are a much more positive force than many Americans have thought, says Eric Klinenberg, author of a new book from Penguin Press, Going Solo: The Extraordinary Rise and Surprising Appeal of Living Alone. The...
Ten years after the original charrette for Columbia Pike, Arlington County in Virginia has adopted an expanded plan for the 3.5-mile-long suburban corridor. In all, the county plans to add 10,000 to 11,000 housing units in the corridor, maintain...
Head to Long Beach September 9-10 to go “Beyond Mobility”
CNU-New York invites you to meet activists, developers, professionals, and local officials who are leveraging the Rust Belt’s resources and infrastructure for renewal of the region.
The New York Times explores the trend of retailers moving back to cities. Office Depot's 5,000 square foot urban stores carry 4,500 items, versus 9,000 in suburban stores. Sales are 90 percent of the suburban store's total in much smaller square...
The elevated Interstate 81 lies above the gritty downtown of Syracuse, New York, like an immense basilisk. The highway's noise, grungy concrete, and particulates enforce an anti-people zone in the heart of the city. It has been called Syracuse's "...
There was an undercurrent throughout the event that carmakers are waking up to the cultural and demographic shifts that are weakening the singular focus on cars as the only mode of mobility.
In June 2012, CNU teamed up with the City of Blue Springs, Missouri, to host a Designing Walkable Urban Thoroughfares Workshop for planners, engineers, and community leaders within the region.
US DOT announced its fourth round of competitive TIGER Discretionary Grants, giving $500 million to 47 projects that run the gamut of transportation modes — many of them multimodal.