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 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.
Looking for a compact alternative to fuel-consuming taxicabs? Some US cities and towns are beginning to see pedicabs — the modern equivalent of rickshaws — carrying passengers through their downtowns and other high-traffic areas. “I really believe...
About 1,500 attendees once again broke the record for the 2007 New Partners for Smart Growth conference in Los Angeles in mid-February. Last year the figure was over 1,200, and the year before that just under 1,000. New Urbanism was a significant...
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...
CNU’s Urban Laboratory sessions were a successful introduction of the Providence Congress. Giving participants an opportunity to work side-by-side with expert new urbanists on local challenges such as customizing a form-based code to the local...
Steve Maun of Leyland Alliance LLC and Andres Duany of Duany Plater-Zyberk & Company led a week-long charrette in early February that produced a design for 30 acres of waterfront land in Newburgh, New York, a distressed Hudson River city of 28,...
n Albemarle Sound in North Carolina, a 1,600-acre development called Sandy Point, part of which will feature a “new urban waterfront,” is expected to break ground in the next few months. Eagerly awaited by county and state officials, the 930-acre...
The Texas A&M University System is negotiating to place a new campus for 25,000 students in the middle of a 2,000-acre traditional neighborhood development (TND) that’s been planned for the South Side of San Antonio.