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 book that introduced North America to this community concept is Cohousing: A Contemporary Approach to Housing Ourselves by Kathryn McCamant and Charles Durrett, available in a second edition from Ten Speed Press ($29.95). The authors tell how...
No one has won more acclaim for designing mixed-use centers in recent years than Richard Heapes. His projects include Mizner Park, Bethesda Row, Santana Row, and Blue Back Square. Heapes has exhibited a flair for creating lively collections of...
Artists are moving into 61 loft apartments in the five-story Read’s Department Store building, which had stood vacant for more than 20 years in downtown Bridgeport, Connecticut. Norwalk-based developer Bill Kraus worked with nonprofit Artspace...
Fourteen projects that fulfill and advance the principles of the Charter of the New Urbanism will be recognized as this year’s best examples of New Urbanism when the 2005 Charter Awards are formally presented in a ceremony at CNU XIII in Pasadena on...
Kennedy Smith, former director of the National Main Street Center of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, was named Loeb Fellow at the Harvard Design School for the 2005-2006 academic year. Smith is principal of Community Land Use and...
A major development was approved for the South Miami Hometown District, which is a walkable, mixed-use, transit-oriented center in the City of South Miami. The 3-block, 5-acre First National Bank of South Miami property will be developed as a mixed-...
Edited by Rahul Mehrotra, Robert Fishman, and Roy Strickland University of Michigan, 2005, distributed by Distributed Arts Press, New York, 80 to 96 pp. each, $17.95 each. Doug Kelbaugh thinks Americans would understand cities better if we...
Providence, Rhode Island, architect Bill Dennis reviewed the names of more than 600 new urban developments across North America and found more repetition than he liked. He identified 10 projects with “Commons” in their name, 30 that were called “...
After lagging behind much of the nation for a dozen years, New England is finally starting to show strong interest in traditional neighborhood developments (TNDs), town centers, new urban brownfield developments, and transit-oriented communities....
Urbanists are directing the planning process for a 12,000-acre addition to the Portland urban growth boundary (UGB). Otak, a Portland-based planning and urban design firm, is leading the project, and the design team included new urbanists Laurence...
Developer Sergio Pino is proposing a 200-acre, 2,700-unit traditional neighborhood development (TND) in Doral, Miami-Dade County, Florida. Grand Bay includes shops, two schools, parks, and a church. The Miami-Dade County Commission voted to change...
See the Charter Awards presented in a lunchtime ceremony at CNU XIII in Pasadena on Friday, June 10, 2005. The awards ceremony is one of the high points of the year in New Urbanism – with jurors and winning project teams sharing the stage to...