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.
A procession of public spaces may complete a courthouse repair and expansion project.
Two years ago the McKinley County government resisted the temptation to move from downtown Gallup New Mexico — a largely intact center with many historic...
To generate respectable returns while maintaining high design standards, the developers of Bradburn use innovative construction techniques and employ a combination of production and custom builders.
When architect Andres Duany wants to provide a...
Loudoun County, Virginia, whose population nearly doubled to 170,000 in the 1990s, has adopted a package of building restrictions limiting development in a 300 sq. mi. western portion of the county to one house per ten, 20, or 50 acres, depending on...
Consultants have identified 12 miles of pedestrian-oriented retail streets in Chicago’s neighborhoods as worth safeguarding. These are shopping areas at least a quarter-mile long with buildings lining the sidewalks on both sides of the street,...
Boston architect and urban designer David Dixon, a principal in the Boston architecture, planning and preservation firm of Goody, Clancy & Associates, has been elected the 68th president of the Boston Society of Architects, the nation’s largest...
Hillsborough County, where Duany Plater-Zyberk & Company completed a semiregionial plan in 1999, is pursuing a number of new urban plans. The county approved a traditional neighborhood development ordinance in October, 2002, according to county...
As we go to press, the New Urbanism division of the American Planning Association has just completed elections for its three officer positions. All were contested races. If you are an APA member and are interested in taking part in this new division...
The American Farmland Trust says the US is losing two acres of mostly prime farmland to development every minute. “We are consuming more land per person than at any time, in the most wasteful way,” said Trust President Ralph Grossi. More than half...
A three-year study sponsored by Smart Growth America reveals higher traffic fatality rates and poorer air quality afflicting metropolitan areas that sprawl. The ten most-sprawling areas average 36 traffic deaths per 100,000 people, while the least...
The Layered Vista combines the Terminated Vista with the Deflected Vista. (These latter were discussed in the previous two Technical Pages.) It names the situation in which the view down a street frames a distant feature which appears above, or...
Miami Township, Ohio, is planning to convert a mile-long economically depressed suburban commercial corridor to a town center with neighborhoods. The township, an affluent suburb of Cincinnati, is assembling three key parcels amounting to nearly 50...
The words “New Jersey” often conjure up images of strip malls and congested highways. In other words, the worst of suburban sprawl.
But that’s exactly what Governor James E.