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.
New urbanists in New England are hoping the University of Hartford will seize the opportunity to turn its fledgling architecture program into a much-needed center for urban design with a new urbanist bent. “That’s something I’ve been advocating to...
By Bob Regan; photos by Tim Fabian The Local History Company, 2004, 142 pp., paperback $21.95. Clambering over the hills above the Allegheny, Monongahela, and Ohio Rivers, Pittsburgh is one of the most up-and-down cities in North America. To...
The cost of owning a car went up to $6,890/year, up from $6,420/year last year, says the American Automobile Association. The rates are calculated for a 2004 vehicle driven 10,000 miles a year and owned five years.
The Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, in collaboration with Northern Light Productions, has produced a documentary called Making Sense of Place — Phoenix: The Urban Desert. The 58-minute film explores the tensions caused by rapid growth and economic...
Cities need to reduce the obstacles to land assembly and acquisition in urban neighborhoods, according to a March forum of the Urban Land Institute. High land costs, limited supply, difficult site assembly requirements, long chains of title, and the...
CNU and the Institute of Transportation Engineers have concluded a competitive selection process for a consulting team to lead the technical work involved in producing a new design manual for major urban thoroughfares. The prime contractor is Kimley...
The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation is going to phase out its support of the Knight Program in Community Building over the next three years. Since its founding in late 2000, the program, based at the University of Miami School of Architecture...
Communities on Cape Cod have begun encouraging housing above stores as a way of revitalizing their town centers. Frederick Melo reported Feb. 8 in the Cape Cod Times that the Town of Bourne has issued three permits for housing above retail...
A long-planned TND called Avonlea is now going through site plan review in Stuart, Florida, according to news reports. A small part of the 49-acre infill project has gone up already, but the main part of Avonlea — 275,000 square feet of commercial...
Downtown Orlando is making a comeback. Nearly 2,000 people have moved into the central business district in recent years, and 3,000 more are expected in the next three years, the Orlando Sentinel reports. Downtown population is projected to top out...
Installation of roads and other infrastructure will begin this summer at Liberty Harbor North, an 80-acre, $2 billion redevelopment in Jersey City, New Jersey, designed by Duany Plater-Zyberk & Co., that will contain 6,000 housing units. “DPZ...
Westminster, Colorado, a rapidly growing suburban municipality halfway between Boulder and Denver, will soon have a wealth of new urban developments. Bradburn, a traditional neighborhood development (TND) focused more on residential than commercial...