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.
The state of Mississippi hopes to start placing “Mississippi Cottages” — a version of the new urbanist Katrina Cottages — in three counties in June. Design specifications are currently being refined for the Mississippi Cottages and for two other...
Looney Ricks Kiss Architects has opened an office in Jacksonville, Florida. See lrk.com for details.
Canada Lands Company (CLC), a corporation that redevelops surplus military bases across Canada, has received the go-ahead to build or refurbish 3,200 housing units at the 200-acre Currie Barracks in Calgary, Alberta. At 16 units per acre, the...
For the past several years, new urbanist developments — mostly small — have been popping up in the towns of northwest Michigan. Now new urbanist ideas are about to be considered across an entire six-county region, through a two-year “visioning”...
Construction is expected to start this spring on a project to install four modern roundabouts, each with a sculpture in its center, on Routes 62 and 391 in Hamburg, New York, south of Buffalo. The village, the state Department of Transportation, and...
The developer of the Midwest’s biggest and most successful traditional neighborhood development (TND), New Town at St. Charles, has planned an equally ambitious TND in the Kansas City area. Whittaker Builders’ New Town at Liberty will eventually...
At least 20 retailers have opened in the past three years in the commercial district of Prospect, in Longmont, Colorado, reports developer Kiki Wallace. A restaurant is going to move into a concrete building known as Johnson’s Corner, which is...
The focus of the 15th annual meeting, to be held in Philadelphia, will be the old city and its region.The annual Congress for the New Urbanism turns 15 in Philadelphia this spring, at a time when New Urbanism is at the center of some of the most...
The Baltimore County Office of Community Conservation has chosen a consultant team led by Rick Hall of Hall Planning and Engineering in Tallahassee and Stuart Sirota of TND Planning Group in Baltimore to prepare a walkability master plan and form-...
Michael Mehaffy is working as a project consultant on development at Orenco Station and elsewhere after relocating from England to Lake Oswego, Oregon, near Portland. He remains a research associate with the Centre for Environmental Structure-Europe...
In the current housing downturn, smart growth appears to be performing better than large-lot suburban sprawl on the metropolitan fringe, according to a Reuters report in mid-February. From Washington, DC, to California, close-in suburbs are doing...
New York City is experimenting with two techniques designed to ward off terrorist attacks without draining the streets of their vitality.