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.
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...
Maurice Cox, an architecture professor at the University of Virginia, is the new director of design of the National Endowment for the Arts. He will supervise panel selection and the grant-making process in design and oversee the Mayors’ Institute on...
Rendering 1 caption (appears on p. 1): A main street and urban center are proposed on the site of a defunct shopping mall in Utah owned by retail titan General Growth Properties. See story on page 6.
Two Pacific Northwest HOPE VI developments that combine well-connected street networks and natural drainage systems were among the winners of the 2007 National Awards for Smart Growth Achievement presented by the US Environmental Protection Agency.
By Todd W. Mansfield, Ross P. Yockey, and L. Beth YockeyAbecedary Press, 2007, 292 pp., $24.95 hardcover.It’s troubling when the chairman of the Urban Land Institute — Todd Mansfield, who for several years was president of the Disney subsidiary that...
Housing construction and mixed-use development are flourishing near commuter rail stations that carry Long Islanders into New York City, The New York Times reported. Condominiums have been completed or planned within walking distance of stations in...
By a margin of 62 to 38 percent, Oregon voters last month resoundingly rolled back many of the effects of a 2004 ballot measure that had weakened land-use planning. Three years ago, a ballot initiative known as Measure 37 required governments to pay...
Island Press has released a thoroughly updated second edition of Douglas Porter’s 1997 book, Managing Growth in America’s Communities. In the new 335-page edition ($35 paperback, $70 hardcover), Porter, a consultant on land use planning and policy...
Don Chen, founding executive director and CEO of Smart Growth America, is stepping down after eight years to join the Ford Foundation as program officer in community development. He will manage a substantial grants portfolio for the nation’s second-...
Peter Swift returned to Longmont, Colorado, after nearly two years of working on planning and development in the Kurdish region of Iraq. He has reactivated his town planning, traffic, and civil engineering firm, Swift and Associates. He has recently...
Seth Brown, co-founder of a quarterly magazine called The Next American City, has launched Aspen Equities LLC, a real estate investment and development company focusing on environmentally sustainable projects in greater New York. The firm’s first...