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.
Architect Frank Greene is closing his practice in his native Chattanooga and moving to Florida, where he will be a senior officer in the Rosemary Beach office of Looney Ricks Kiss Architects.
The Selectboard in Bennington, Vermont, adopted a zoning bylaw in January prohibiting any store from exceeding 50,000 square feet in one part of town and 75,000 square feet in two other areas. Wal-Mart wants to raze its existing 50,000 sq. ft. store...
Oregon is struggling with the consequences of Measure 37, a ballot initiative last November that increased the rights of many property owners at the expense of growth management. Measure 37 stipulated that governments must pay owners, or forgo...
The City of Miramar, Florida, approved final agreements necessary for Rockefeller Group Development Corporation and Kimco Developers to begin construction of the private development phase of the 54-acre Miramar Town Center. Planned by Torti Gallas...
By William Morgan Harry N. Abrams, 2004, 424 pp., hardcover $40.
Planning consultant John P. Bergan is leading a campaign to change the placement of a World War II Memorial soon to be built in Trenton’s Veterans Park. As currently planned, the memorial would be centered in the park but would be off center to the...
Santana Row, the shopping and housing development so large and costly that for a while it caused Federal Realty Investment Trust to swear off undertaking such projects, now appears to be doing well. The $455 million redevelopment of a shopping mall...
A mature and well-conceived new urban community can easily pass the “orange juice test.” That is, a resident can send a twelve-year-old son or daughter to the corner store unaccompanied to pick up some juice or other basic supplies. One could...
Millennium Partners expects to start building a mixed-use development in August at the Bay Area Rapid Transit station in Pleasant Hill, Contra Costa County, California. Plans have changed greatly during 14 years of contention over what should be...
Ventura, California, where new urbanist Rick Cole became city manager in early 2004, has now hired Ann Daigle as urban development and planning manager. Daigle is a founding principal of PlaceMakers, an urban design firm that focuses on New Urbanism...
Brian O’Looney of Torti Gallas & Partners took issue with an article in the March issue of New Urban News, stating that a proposed plan in Chico would, “for the first time in the US,” embed a professional baseball stadium into the urban fabric...
John Norquist, chief executive officer of CNU, submitted a “friend of the court” brief to the US Supreme Court, arguing that governments do not need the power of eminent domain to carry out economic development projects. Writing as an individual...