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.
Emily Talen’s article, “The Social Goals of New Urbanism,” published in Volume 13, Number 1 of Housing Policy Debate in 2002, is now available on the Internet at: www.fanniemaefoundation.org/programs/hpd/v13i1-talen.shtml. Talen, who teaches...
CNU’s project to create new guidelines for major streets is producing new documents. These will be available at the CNU website as they are completed. Under “Initiatives,” click “Street Design Manual.”
I am not averse to making a buck, and the more the better — but you have got to fall in love with your project. The conventional outlook is that you don’t fall in love with your project. To this I say, ‘pshaw’.”
Chris Leinberger, Arcadia Land Co.
New Urbanism is apparently coming to Moscow, Russia. An $80 million, intensely urban development has been proposed for a three-acre site. The project will mix residential, retail, and office space with buildings defining the edge of the block,...
The New Urbanism has been relatively slow to catch on in New England. According to New Urban News’ annual survey, that region has the fewest examples of any region in the US (there are some notable exceptions, such as Mashpee Commons and handful of...
Spotsylvania County developer Tricord Inc. is pursuing plans to transform 400 acres of Virginia farmland into a new urban Rappahannock riverfront community to be known as Nottingham Farm. The site, located in New Post, at the intersection of US 17...
Post Properties of Atlanta and its joint venture partner, the New York State Common Retirement Fund, sold the 391-unit Post Paseo Colorado apartments in Pasadena, California, for $98 million. The apartments were 80 percent occupied at the time. The...
New urban communities, when fully developed, generate fewer car trips outside their boundaries than conventional development, according to preliminary surveys by a Brigham Young University student. The results were most dramatic in Seaside, where...
Arguments run hot in New Orleans over plans for a 200,000 sq. ft. supercenter in a public housing redevelopment.
Along-running dispute over whether a Wal-Mart store should be built as part of a 64-acre New Orleans HOPE VI project may soon be...
Advocates of concentrated development worry as new governor empties the Office of Smart Growth.
Maryland’s new Republican governor, Robert L. Ehrlich Jr., has dismissed top officers of what had been America’s premier state smart growth initiative....
The National Charrette Institute (NCI), based in Portland, Oregon, received a $76,000 grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. NCI will develop a best practices forum of experts from many disciplines (health, land-use, politics) to use the...
Architect Dhiru Thadani designed a pocket park in Washington, DC, that won a Vision Award this spring from The Committee of 100 on the Federal City. The Committee, which champions values rooted in L’Enfant’s original plan for the nation’s capital,...