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.
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...
The City of Madison, Wisconsin, recently approved the Village of Autumn Lake, a 285-acre mixed-use project based largely on traditional neighborhood design. The project will be the fourth TND underway by Veridian Homes, the largest builder in the...
In an unusual plan to rid Britain’s skylines of their worst eyesores, George Ferguson, head of the Royal Institute of British Architects, has proposed financial and tax incentives for demolition of offensive buildings. “All you have to do is look...
The authors of two bibliographies of scholarly research on new urbanist topics share a few highlights from the lists.
“Factors influencing light-rail station boardings in the United States,” by Michael Kuby et al. in Transportation Research Part...
Mashpee Commons in Mashpee, Massachusetts, is getting close to completing three live-work units – the first of 30 to 35 that will be built, according to Doug Storrs of Cornish Associates, the developer. The 2,100 sq. ft., two-story shopfront houses...
Eight hundred acres of the former Fort Ord, an Army base about 100 miles south of San Francisco, are about to be developed into a mixed-use community featuring live-work lofts for artists and a large complement of permanently affordable housing. Two...
“A review of key state and local planning records” reveals “no significant shifts in Maryland’s development patterns since the passage of [former Governor Parris] Glendening’s smart growth package,” the Washington Post reported Aug. 10 in a detailed...
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,...
Architect Tom Low is trying to rally support for an urban design center for the Charlotte region, modeled after Nashville’s Civic Design Center. The most critical design challenge for the region is influencing development taking place near the new...