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.
Planners from Dover, Kohl & Partners of Coral Gables, Florida, spent more than a week in the Spring Hill area of Mobile, Alabama, working with residents, city planners, and traffic engineers on changes to three major intersections. The Press-...
Crosland LLC, developer of mixed-use communities such as Birkdale Village in Huntersville, North Carolina, has teamed up with Northwestern Mutual to create the Southeastern Investment Fund. The new fund is expected to have $225 million for land...
The City of Duluth, Minnesota, has received a $170,000 grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and a $40,000 grant from the Minnesota Lake Superior Coastal Program to help create a new Unified Development Code. The code will update the...
Rather than see the school board in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, replace the city’s five neighborhood elementary schools with one mega-school containing 1,800 students, Tom Hylton helped launch a campaign that defeated five incumbent school board...
After 13 years as New Mexico’s de facto state planner, Ken Hughes has moved to a new position as clean energy specialist in the state’s Energy Department. “Smart growth is an area I brought over with me, so I continue to keep a handle on the subject...
CORRECTION: The plan below was misidentified on page 7 of the October/November issue. Called Sasay, it is located in Coban, Guatemala, and the developer is R&R Development. The designers are Seth Harry and Associates and Jaime Correa and...
By Douglas FarrJohn Wiley & Sons, 2007, 304 pp., $75 hardcoverAmericans love to celebrate “our robust range of life choices,” Chicago architect and urban designer Douglas Farr writes in this potentially important book. We express satisfaction...
Toll Brothers, which builds houses and apartments in 22 states, reported in November that customers backed out of purchase contracts at the highest rate the company has ever seen. While most conventional developments received ratings of “F,” “F-...
The Texas Transportation Commission, which oversees the Texas Department of Transportation, appointed an informal urban thoroughfare team that includes John Norquist, CEO of the Congress for the New Urbanism, Scott Polikov of the Gateway Planning...
Three-fourths of Americans believe that being smarter about development and improving public transportation are better long-term solutions for reducing traffic congestion than building new roads, according to a survey sponsored by the National...
James Howard Kunstler appears throughout “Radiant City,” a recently released film that that The New York Times described as “an acerbic position paper on the cultural damage done by postwar architectural fads.” Reviewer Matt Zoller Seitz said the...