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.
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...
The Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU) accreditation program is gathering momentum. The professional program, announced by CNU in June and managed in partnership with the University of Miami, was established “to recognize the talent within the new...
The Prince’s Foundation uses traditional urbanism to reclaim difficult settings.��A Caribbean version of new urbanist techniques is being relied upon to rebuild an impoverished part of West Kingston, Jamaica, that has been ravaged by 30 years of...
From Despair to Hope is the story of the transformation of public housing, a story that deeply involves New Urbanism.