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.
After 5 years, Dhiru Thadani “disbanded” the Washington, DC, Town Planning Studio of Ayers/Saint/Gross, explaining that the firm no longer supports his approach to traditional town planning. The studio won 4 CNU Charter Awards and 3 AIA Chapter...
John Anderson and his partner David Kim are now working as consultants and/or developers on “a constellation of small infill projects” in Chico, California. Formerly of New Urban Builders, they started a new firm, Anderson/Kim Architecture + Urban...
The Town of Davidson, about a half-hour north of downtown Charlotte, North Carolina, is steering a middle course.
By Léon Krier, edited by Dhiru A. Thadani and Peter J. Hetzel
If you’ve never read Léon Krier, you’ve missed a tremendous pleasure.
Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported April 22 that the redevelopment of a 28-acre former industrial site into the Glenwood Park neighborhood has been largely successful. For being new, it feels old-fashioned, says resident Abbie Gulson, in a “Can...
“Any city is basically an oil well or a coal mine — it’s sitting on energy,” Douglas Foy, secretary of commonwealth development under former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, told a Lincoln Institute of Land Policy conference in late April. “Any...
At the Regional Plan Association’s Regional Assembly in New York in April, New Urban News ran into Jebediah Reed, the young journalist who recently established the website The Infrastructurist. Reed says he envisions the site as an accessible place...
Frank Greene, town architect since 2005 for the Rosemary Beach development in the Florida Panhandle, has a new firm, Element 5 Studio LLC, based in Rosemary Beach and providing architectural, interior design, and community services. His partners...
“Lifelong Communities” charrette spurs a warming of relations between new urbanists and disability-rights activists.The Atlanta Regional Commission had Andres Duany lead a charrette in February aimed at helping municipal and county governments...
Recently released and soon-to-be released studies show that people who live in cities and near transit generate substantially lower greenhouse gas emissions, both in the US and internationally.
A study by the International Institute for Environment...
The current downturn, says a top retail expert, is “shaking out plans and centers that were poorly conceived.”
Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s administration intends to experiment with closing five blocks of Broadway in Midtown Manhattan to vehicular traffic, possibly as early as this May. “Although it seems counterintuitive, officials believe the move will...