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.
CNU members should watch their mailboxes for issue eight of Zoning Practice of the American Planning Association, provided as a CNU membership benefit. Produced in cooperation with CNU, this issue focuses on creating and modifying zoning codes to...
By Howard Frumkin, Lawrence Frank, and Richard Jackson Island Press, 2004, 338 pp., hardcover $60, paperback $30
Decades ago, alleys in eastern seaboard cities were inhabited mostly by the poor. Today, by contrast, they are becoming increasingly alluring to middle- and upper-income people, some of whom are willing to pay large sums for an alley home possessing...
Now that his Seaside, Florida, development is well established, Robert Davis is focusing much of his attention on two distinct parts of the world environment: the “urban room” and the “agricultural edge.” In 2002, Davis, Raymond Gindroz of Urban...
The transformation of suburban office parks into new urban town centers caught the attention of USA Today, which ran a lengthy feature on September 13 that focused on Legacy Town Center in Plano, Texas, among other projects. “Many of today’s young...
Developer Casey Roloff is getting ready to begin construction of homes in Seabrook, the first full-scale new urban beach development on the West Coast. The project in Pacific Beach, Washington, occupies 88 acres and is planned for 400 housing units...
Producer Kyle Justice has put together a 22-minute promotional video/DVD for the new town of Seabrook in Pacific Beach, Washington. The high-quality video includes footage of TNDs and interviews with developer Casey Roloff, designer Laurence Qamar,...
A new firm, DPZ-Pacific, has been formed by former Duany Plater-Zyberk & Company (DPZ) director Demetri Baches, and three former DPZ staffers: Mallory Baches, Ludwig Fontalvo-Abello, and Kamal Zaharin. The firm, a “DPZ affiliate,” Baches says,...
Supporters of traditional neighborhood design have long wished for an industry-approved manual that gives transportation engineers the tools – and the permission – to design major context-sensitive streets for urban settings. Now hope is on the way...
Suburbia was conceived in the desire for blandly pleasant places. It sometimes achieved this, particularly where maturing landscape obscured infantile architecture. But visual satisfaction upon arrival at fullness now often obscures an underlying...
If success has many fathers, then Southside in Greensboro, North Carolina, is well cared for. Locally, the 10-acre urban redevelopment is considered to be something of a marvel. Nationally, it won an American Planning Association Outstanding...
Hank Dittmar will resign as president and CEO of Reconnecting America at year’s end to become chief executive of the Prince’s Foundation for the Built Environment, which promotes traditional urban design and architecture in Britain. The Congress for...