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.
Bill Dennis and his firm, B. Dennis Town & Building Design, have moved from Albuquerque, New Mexico, to Providence, Rhode Island. He is working on projects in England through the Prince’s Foundation for the Built Environment, as well as on...
Developers of Blue Back Square, a large, planned new urban expansion of the West Hartford Center in Connecticut, are fighting a lawsuit from a national shopping mall operator, Taubman Centers of Bloomfield Hills, Michigan (see Dec. 2004 New Urban...
Developers are showing substantial interest in the new urban downtown proposed by Temple Terrace, Florida. The suburban city with 22,000 residents hired Torti Gallas & Partners to design the town center on 38 acres in 2004, and to create a plan...
By Michael Lassell Disney Editions, 2004, 160 pp., hardcover $50. Those looking for a putdown of Celebration won’t find it in Celebration: The Story of a Town, which is a generally glowing account and assessment of Disney’s famous Florida new...
Crosland Inc. signed an agreement to develop two neighborhoods totaling 600 houses in Longleaf, a traditional neighborhood development (TND) north of Tampa, Florida. The move should speed the pace of development in Longleaf, which has relied on...
The third Australia and New Zealand conference on New Urbanism is being held March 11-13 in Sydney. The event, Australian Council for New Urbanism (ACNU), marks the first meeting of a group by the same name. The ACNU board of directors includes new...
Shaker Square, the octagonal shopping center where residents of Shaker Heights catch commuter trains to downtown Cleveland, celebrated its 75th anniversary in November with a new owner committed to overcoming the mistakes that left half of its 150,...
Port Royal is just a small town in South Carolina, but from a new urban perspective, it’s a town with a golden opportunity and with the right attitude and tools. The opportunity is a state-owned strip of land of 40-plus acres with over a mile of...
Five communities in three states received 2004 National Awards for Smart Growth Achievement from the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which praised the communities for innovative approaches to development “that strengthen community identity...
Advocates of transit-oriented development (TOD) in the San Francisco Bay Area are talking about reducing the number of parking spaces that must be provided when parking lots at BART stations are redeveloped for housing and other uses. TOD projects...
A proposal to build a Target in north Milwaukee will test that city’s new standards for retail development. Developer Redmond Co. of Waukesha, Wisconsin, wants to put in a typical 130,000 sq. ft. box with a massive parking lot in front, according to...
Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell signed a law in December that encourages development around bus and rail stations. The law authorizes establishment of Transit Revitalization Investment Districts (TRIDs) — partnerships between local governments,...