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.
Architect Witold Rybczynski, editor of the Wharton Real Estate Review, has written one of the best financial analyses to date of new urban communities. “The Art of the New Urbanist Deal,” in the fall issue of the Review, examines four new urban...
Large-scale new urban community is planned for brownfield site.
Sunrise, the first major new urban project planned in the wake of Envision Utah, is slated to break ground in 2003. The project is on 4,300 acres of former mining land within a new...
Deep pockets of developer keep town, built on the site of a former airport, moving forward.
Bombardier, the big Canadian manufacturer of trains, planes, and watercraft, has found a way to keep its 500-acre Bois-Franc development in Montreal...
As part of a strategy announced in 1998, the city of Albuquerque set out to convert its one-way downtown streets back to two-way. One pair of one-way streets reverted to two-way traffic two years ago, and four other pairs – eight streets – are now...
Tucson’s sustainable, new urban development loses its leading advocate.
After constructing narrow streets, a neighborhood center, and about 250 energy-efficient houses, the developer of Civano may be backing away from the principles of New...
Santa Fe Council tries to organize efforts toward zoning reform.
Before New Year’s Day, the SmartCode developed by Duany Plater- Zyberk & Company will make its long-awaited debut.
“We intend to start printing it before the end of the year,”...
Milt Rhodes, a University of Miami Knight Fellow, was named director of community planning and program development for the North Carolina Smart Growth Alliance.
Florida voters overwhelmingly approved a constitutional amendment to allow counties to exempt so-called “granny flats” from property tax. The stipulation is that these units be built for a parent, grandparent, or spouse who is 62 years old or older.
Since the Charter of the New Urbanism was written, people have argued
about how well development projects fulfill its principles. Homebuyers, investors, and public officials all want to know if a project is real New Urbanism. Various individuals...
A five-story, 65-foot-high apartment building has been approved for construction near Federal Realty Investment Trust’s Bethesda Row project in downtown Bethesda, Maryland. The Montgomery County Planning Board gave the go-ahead to the project –- to...
II. Terminated Vistas
Considering what the pedestrian and driver see ahead is one of the basic tasks of good urban design; management of vistas is not an empty formal gesture. It helps people get around more easily and interestingly, and it...
1) Mix land uses.
2) Take advantage of compact building design.
3) Create housing opportunities and choices for a range of household types, family sizes and incomes.
4) Create walkable neighborhoods.
5) Foster distinctive, attractive communities...