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.
Juneau Avenue Partners announced in July that House of Blues Entertainment will occupy a 32,000-square-foot club and Jenco Cinemas will operate a 16-screen Cinemax theater in Milwaukee’s PabstCity project. The 1.2-million-square-foot PabstCity...
Redevelopment consistent with new urbanist principles is getting underway in Beall’s Hill, a 30-block, mostly African-American neighborhood in Macon, Georgia. In November 2001 the Knight Program in Community Building conducted a charrette that...
New Haven architect Robert Orr looked into the idea of removing the word “mobility” from New Haven municipal standards and inserting “walkability.” He hoped this might redefine the functions that the city’s streets should serve. But Peter Swift, a...
As Director of Environmental Health at the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, Dr. Richard Jackson did groundbreaking work identifying the public health problems with sprawl. Jackson and his colleague Dr. Howard Frumkin of the Rollins School of...
Barbara A. Nadel, editor in chief McGraw-Hill, 2004, 672 pp., $89.95. “The Oklahoma City bombing marked the beginning of a national, industrywide approach to security planning and building design to combat terrorism,” New York architect Barbara...
A study in central Texas indicates that pocket parks play a key role in making higher density palatable for homebuyers in a new urban community. The survey, “Buying New Urbanism,” found that small lot sizes, by themselves, face resistance in new...
One of the best booklets in the field is Designing for Security: Using Art and Design to Improve Security, produced in 2002 by the Art Commission of the City of New York and the Design Trust for Public Space. This 67-page illustrated report is...
Robert Sitkowski, formerly with the law firm Robinson & Cole in Hartford, Connecticut, has moved to Chicago, where he now practices land use law at Freeborn & Peters. He can be reached at rsitkowski@freebornpeters.com.
Homebuilder D.R. Horton selected Sean Compton of TBG Partners to plan and entitle a 280-acre TND in Austin, Texas, called Pioneer Hill. This project will be the first to be developed under Austin’s 1997 TND ordinance, TBG says.
Doucette Homes’ Civano Sol development at Civano in Tucson, Arizona, won a Gold Nugget 2004 Award of Merit from the Pacific Coast Builders Conference and Builder magazine as “best sustainable/green residential project of the year.”
A new town for sign language users is being planned near Sioux Falls, South Dakota. The Laurent Company, spearheaded by Marvin Miller, who is deaf, and his hearing mother-in-law M.E. Barwacz, is working with new urbanist planner and engineer Peter...
Bob Regan and Tim Fabian have formed a nonprofit organization, Save Our Steps, to raise money to help preserve the hundreds of sets of steps that climb the hills of Pittsburgh (see June 2004 New Urban News). Information is available at www....