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.
An article by Andrew Nelson in the November-December National Geographic Traveler pays this tribute to pedestrian-friendly traits, as found in Philadelphia: “One of Philadelphia’s greatest assets is of a low-tech variety — its sidewalks. A city...
New Urban News won in the “General Excellence: Newsletters” category in Utne magazine’s 2005 Independent Press awards. The announcement was made in Utne’s January 2006 issue.
Chad Emerson will teach a course on federal, state, and local laws and regulations governing smart-growth planning and development, beginning Jan. 12 at Faulkner University’s Jones School of Law in Montgomery, Alabama. Emerson, a Faulkner professor...
Hammond’s Ferry, a 200-acre traditional neighborhood development (TND) now under construction in North Augusta, South Carolina, builds upon a plan that James U. Jackson, the original developer of North Augusta, set forth in the 1890s and never...
By Robert BruegmannUniversity of Chicago Press, 2005, 301 pp., hardcover $27.50.
New statistics on commuting suggest that residents of metropolitan Atlanta are shifting toward living closer to work and increasingly toward finding homes in Atlanta itself. From 1998 to 2003 the average distance each person drives per day plummeted...
Sherman Plaza, a $190 million mixed-use project, is the latest development rising in downtown Evanston, Illinois, which has become an ever-livelier center in the past 10 years. Nearly all of the 253 residential units have been sold; construction is...
Three hundred and fifty participants from all over Israel attended the first conference of Merhav, the Movement for Israeli Urbanism (MIU), held on December 12 and 13 in Be’er-Sheva, according to US urbanist Dhiru Thadani of Ayers Saint Gross...
CNU is pleased to welcome two new staff members to its Chicago office. Lee Crandell joined CNU in November 2005 after working part time in 2003 to assist with special projects and Congress planning. As CNU’s membership and chapter coordinator, Lee’s...
Christopher Gray, who has been writing the “Streetscapes” feature in the Sunday New York Times real estate section for years, authored an Oct. 23 article debating whether Manhattan’s 1811 grid, which covers most of the island, has turned out to be...
Leo Casas of Opticos Design has been hired by Seaside town founder Robert Davis to fill the position of the town architect. “This position had been vacant for several years and Robert Davis has reinstituted this position because he realized that the...
The Louisiana Recovery Authority is
hiring experienced new urbanist firms to help the state, where an estimated 205,000 homes were destroyed in Hurricanes Katrina and Rita and their aftermath.