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.
After three years of public debate, the Planning and Zoning Commission of Madison, Connecticut, has given Leyland Alliance of Tuxedo, New York, approval to develop a 42-acre new urban community called Madison Landing. The development, planned...
The design of every housing unit must consider both its
living and its working functions.
All dwellings are intrinsically the stage for domestic work, including such routine tasks as cooking, laundering, and maintenance.
One of the challenges for urbanists is how to prevent ballparks from becoming enormous. “Most of the traditional ballparks were on sites of no more than eight to 10 acres,” says Kevin Klinkenberg, a principal in 180 Degree Design Studio in Kansas...
The Milwaukee Common Council ap-proved a plan on June 15 for redeveloping a mile-long corridor on an edge of downtown where the blighting influence of the Park East Freeway has been eliminated.
With a grant from the John Nolen Family Fund, Lee Sobel of the US Environmental Protection Agency will be at Cornell University in mid-July to study the origins and principles of town plans that John Nolen produced. “My goal is to codify the...
Marc Wouters, who worked extensively on HOPE VI public housing redevelopment projects for Torti Gallas & Partners, has moved to Cooper Robertson & Partners in New York.
With a grant from the John Nolen Family Fund, Lee Sobel of the US...
Congress passed legislation June 29 that extends the expiration date of the federal TEA-21 transportation law until the end of July. Even so, the Surface Transportation Policy Project says most observers see no chance that the House and Senate will...
The success of River Ranch, a 256-acre community that Robert Daigle is developing in Lafayette, Louisiana, is spurring other people in Louisiana to consider Traditional Neighborhood Development. Officials of Ascension Parish, between New Orleans and...
Dial Realty of Kansas City, Missouri, began construction in June on Crescent Creek, a 22-acre Traditional Neighborhood Development in Raytown, a first-ring postwar suburb of Kansas City. A creek that runs through the site will remain open. On the...
Having made a fortune by founding the Internet service provider MindSpring and later merging it into EarthLink, Charles Brewer is in an enviable situation: he’s able to develop a new urban project in Atlanta “without borrowing a dime.” In the past...
When Disney started developing Celebration, it called on nationally known architects to design many of the downtown buildings. At Baldwin Park, by contrast, famous architects haven’t been needed.
• The Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU XII) in late June in Chicago hosted a session, The Coming Demand, which examined an “increasing demand for accessible and visitable housing and neighborhoods.” Accessibility/visitability advocates also staged...