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.
“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...
By Malcolm MillaisIf you want to know where all of the Modern Movement’s bodies are buried, this is the book.
Town-Green of Oakland California is teaming with the National Charrette Institute NCI of Portland Or
Town-Green of Oakland, California, is teaming with the National Charrette Institute (NCI) of Portland, Oregon, on a $180,000 pilot project called Emerald Cities, designed to help the City of Tracy, California, meet climate, energy, and environmental...
New York City has published its first Street Design Manual, and it’s winning praise from urbanists. In a review on the Design Observer website, Jeff Speck, an urban planning consultant based in Washington, DC, wrote that the 232-page publication “is...
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On its second try, the Miami City Commission on Sept. 4 approved the “Miami 21” zoning code, which would place South Florida’s biggest city under a form-based code. The new code would be “the largest form-based code adopted anywhere,” says Marina...