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.
Newland Communities LLC has agreed to build a traditional town center in its Clarksburg Town Center development in Montgomery County, Maryland, as part of a settlement that apparently ends a long-running controversy over whether the developer...
The patterns of alley geometry and alley-associated buildings, where they meet the block faces and surrounding streets, may be usefully adjusted in a variety of ways. It is necessary to understand standard configurations, but also how they may be...
A new high-density transit-oriented development in Rockville, Maryland, was compared in The Washington Post to the Piazza Campo dei Fiori in Rome. Rockville Town Square, now under construction, is surrounded by multistory buildings with cafes and...
Montgomery, Alabama, which recently adopted the SmartCode, has now hired Dover, Kohl & Partners of South Miami, Florida, to create a downtown redevelopment plan. Dover Kohl will be paid up to $310,000 out of the general fund, according to a...
In the mountain states, where urban neighborhoods are oases in a landscape of wide-open spaces, “traveling eight hours for a meeting is par for the course,” says Katie Selby, codeveloper of South Main in Buena Vista, CO. So she wasn’t surprised to...
Tom Borrup, a Minneapolis-based consultant in nonprofit management, community development, and philanthropy, has written The Creative Community Builder’s Handbook: How to Transform Communities Using Local Assets, Arts, and Culture. The 224-page...
Milt Rhodes has moved from Miami, Florida, to Raleigh, in his native North Carolina, where he is working part time on projects for Dover, Kohl & Partners, where he previously was employed. Rhodes, who has degrees in architecture, urban planning...
Since 2002, Albuquerque developer Rob Dickson has completed three phases of converting the long-vacant Albuquerque High School to housing. Now his Paradigm & Company LLC is about to start the fourth and final phase, which calls for building 54...
If economic feasibility studies turn out favorably, there’s a good chance that Wal-Mart will combine its rebuilt store in Pass Christian, Mississippi, with 300 to 500 townhouses and apartments.
Since last October’s Mississippi Renewal Forum, new...
A senior vice president of a real estate financing and development firm, Faison Enterprises, recently criticized the financial returns of new urban town centers. Frank Herring, who is based in Winter Park, Florida, says town centers cost 30 percent...
By John Nolen Introduction by Charles D. Warren University of Massachusetts Press in association with the Library of American Landscape History, 2005, 228 pp., hardcover $35
In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the Orton Family Foundation will develop new planning tools and processes that coastal communities can use. The David and Lucile Packard Foundation will give the Orton Family Foundation $250,000 to introduce...