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.
Mike Lydon who left Duany Plater-Zyberk & Co in April and established a firm called The Street Plans
Mike Lydon, who left Duany Plater-Zyberk & Co. in April and established a firm called The Street Plans Collaborative, has taken the lead in devising a SmartCode module that tells how to accommodate bicycling across the rural-to-urban Transect.
Houses in highly walkable neighborhoods sell for about $4,000 to $34,000 more than houses in places that offer just average levels of walkability, according to a study that Joe Cortright of Impresa Inc. conducted for CEOs for Cities. The study, “...
A City of New Orleans draft master plan recommends ripping out the elevated Interstate 10 expressway
A City of New Orleans draft master plan recommends ripping out the elevated Interstate 10 expressway that was built in the late 1960s above Claiborne Avenue — a wide boulevard that once abounded with magnificent live oak trees. Traffic would instead...
CNU’s Board of Directors added four new members earlier this year. In this issue, CNU will briefly profile two of them, Russell Preston and Jack Davis. And then in an upcoming issue, it will profile the two others, Jennifer Hurley and Scott Polikov.
Infrastructure costs are 32 to 47 percent lower in traditional neighborhood development (TND) than in conventional suburban development
“How can we get people to use a place 365 days a year?” is the question that Live Work Learn Play asks as it goes about planning, improving, or reviving a town center, says Max Reim. The firm avoids chain operators, but encourages outstanding...
Michael Dobbins's long experience as a public-sector urban designer imbues Urban Design and People with an in-the-trenches understanding of how to get things done.
Individuals who have played significant roles in New Urbanism did very well in a recent Planetizen poll aimed at identifying “the top 100 urban thinkers.” Andres Duany came in second, Leon Krier eighth, James Howard Kunstler 12th, and Peter...
Taking down a section of interstate highway is unprecedented — but a similar move is being considered in Syracuse, New York, where elevated portions of I-81 run through downtown, inflicting considerable harm on the urban environment. I-81 in...
Thanks in part to the work of CNU members acting as advisers to the United States Green Building Council (USGBC), the LEED for Neighborhood Development (LEED-ND) rating system may soon award a special bonus point to projects in Arlington Heights or...
The September New Urban News reported that Vancouver, British Columbia, has started allowing rentable secondary suites to be created in newly constructed condominium buildings but not in existing buildings. Vancouver Senior Planner Neal LaMontagne...
The Seattle area’s first light-rail line, Central Link, opened on July 18, carrying passengers from downtown Seattle southward for 14 miles, to just short of Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. The line passes through a bedraggled, auto-oriented...