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 help increase bicycling and walking trips and reduce deaths and injuries, 121 jurisdictions across the country have adopted Complete Streets policies since 1971.
In the 1960s, New York City drew up a plan that converted Water Street in Lower Manhattan into a wide thoroughfare lined by sleek modern office towers. Now, recognizing that hardly anyone enjoys this broad thoroughfare, the Alliance for Downtown...
New York planners have mobilized to ward off a threat to the character of residential streets: insertion of new driveways and garages into pedestrian-friendly blocks of old rowhouses.
The nation's capital launches a 'temporary urbanism' initiative to active vacant storefronts — at least for a limited time — and encourage creative entrepreneurs.
Washington, DC-based planning consultant Jeff Speck moved himself, his wife, and their 21-month-old son to Lowell, Massachusetts this April for what he calls a “slow charrette” — a full month of working on a plan for Lowell’s future development...
One of the latest communities to restrict "formula businesses" is Provincetown, Massachusetts.
New York State this summer adopted a Smart Growth Public Infrastructure Policy Act.
Dr. John M. MacDonald, a criminology professor and behavioral scientist at the University of Pennsylvania, wanted to know whether switching from driving to riding mass transit would help people lose weight. To find out, he surveyed Charlotte,...
Arterial roads — especially those with heavy traffic volumes, high speeds, and strip commercial development such as big-box stores — are undermining Americans’ safety. The extent of the danger was investigated recently by Eric Dumbaugh and Wenhao...
Seven years after they were first proposed, 47 sometimes controversial affordable dwelling units are nearing completion in Barrington, Rhode Island, a well-heeled town about 10 miles south of Providence.
Kentucky's oldest public housing project, a crime-plagued complex in Lexington, is replaced by a HOPE VI mix of housing on a tree-shaded street grid.
Cities and towns are shifting from conventional zoning codes to form-based codes, which recently were adopted in Denver and Miami. Architects debate the effects.