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.
“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...
Yaromir Steiner explains four important rules for regional urban centers:
Rendering 1 caption (appears on page 1): A design for courtyard housing in Santa Fe, see story on page 9.
By Jeff MapesOregon State University Press, 2009, 288 pp., $19.95Seeking to alter decades of entrenched and outmoded transportation policies, an increasingly diverse coalition of progressive citizen-activists, planners, advocacy groups,...
A 90- to 100-room hotel planned for Southern Village, a traditional neighborhood development in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, has been shelved in response to neighborhood concerns, according to the Herald-Sun newspaper. “Although some Southern...
The National Charrette Institute released an educational DVD useful for charrette sponsors. NCI Charrette System: Stories of Community Transformation gives day-by-day accounts of recent community planning charrettes in Fort Myers, Florida; Ocean...
CNU calls on new urbanists to review and comment on the latest draft of the rating system by June 14.
Photo 1 caption (appears on page 01):The redevelopment of the Columbia Heights Metro station area in Washington, DC, won a Charter Award for 2009. See story on page 5. courtesy of the congress for the new urbanism
By Bernard Zyscovich with Douglas R. PorterUrban Land Institute, 2008, 137 pp., $69.95 hardcoverMiami architect Bernard Zyscovich has done some interesting urban things. He is credited with devising the redevelopment plan for Miami Beach’s Lincoln...
Buoyed by the federal government’s agreement to provide funds for the first phase of Metro rail service to Dulles International Airport, developers are reviving long-dormant plans for hotels, convention centers, shops, and housing on property...