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.
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...
The Oregon Supreme Court in February upheld Measure 37, a law that could undo the state’s three-decade-long effort to restrict development outside urban growth boundaries. The law, approved by voters in November 2004, requires governments to let...
In a year when new urbanists are bringing historic plans and real optimism to the hurricane-hit Gulf Coast, the fourteenth annual Congress for the New Urbanism will feature four days focused on getting great plans implemented wherever they’re...
Sandy Sorlien and Jonathan Barnett spoke in a University of Pennsylvania symposium in February on “Rebuilding Urban Places After Disaster: Lessons from Hurricane Katrina.” This summer Penn Press will publish a volume of the symposium papers, edited...
A design that Washington, DC, architect Milton Grenfell produced for the Mississippi Renewal Forum last October was the cover illustration for the February issue of Traditional Building. Inside the magazine was a 4,000-word feature by Period Homes...
The Avenue District and the redevelopment of the Flats may produce housing at opposite ends of downtown.
Critics of smart growth and New Urbanism love to point out that sprawl is not limited to the US or North America; it occurs across the globe. The implication is that all the world, or at least the portion that can afford it, likes living and working...
Washington, DC, Mayor Anthony Williams last year announced a “Great Streets” program that would spend $100 million of local funds on streetscape and infrastructure improvements, land-use planning, and development assistance in the capital city. In...
The fifth annual New Partners for Smart Growth conference in Denver at the end of January drew the largest crowd ever for this event by a considerable margin, according to Michele Kelso Warren of the Local Government Commission (LGC) in Sacramento,...
Mashpee Commons on Cape Cod is in the permitting phase for 382 new residences — a mix of detached houses, townhouses, apartments, and live-works. Developers Buff Chace and Douglas Storrs are obtaining permits under a Massachusetts law known
Cincinnati and Baltimore have pulled down “skywalks” that were once seen as a great way to connect downtown buildings. “Cincinnati City Architect Michael Moore said the difference is striking around Fountain Square since 2 of the city’s original 22...