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.
Denser, more urban developments tend to generate fewer air and water pollutants and use less energy and resources on a per capita basis, according to research by Eliot Allen of Criterion Planners and Engineers. Allen has created an “Environmental...
he Sacramento Regional County Sanitation District has begun to encourage infill development by lowering sewer hook-up fees for development in established urban areas and raising the fees for greenfield subdivisions. The connection fee for a new...
A new survey finds social cohesion and above average use of transit among residents in the Hillsboro, Oregon, community. The lots are smaller and the prices generally higher than in conventional Portland suburbs, but residents of Orenco Station,...
The New Urban Studio, a unit of the HOK Planning Group with offices in Washington, DC, and Miami, have hired Oscar Machado and Steven Schukraft as senior associates. Machado specializes in the design of new urbanist neighborhoods and buildings and...
The Funders’ Network for Smart Growth and Livable Communities have released “Education and Smart Growth: Reversing School Sprawl for Better Schools and Communities,” a paper that explores the impact of the trend toward building new schools on large...
CNU is proud to announce a new benefit of membership. All members will now receive reports from the periodic Charter Councils as well as the Kentlands, Maryland-based Town Paper. Members had been receiving these publications on an ad-hoc basis, but...
A plan for 60 square miles around Research Triangle Park (RTP) in North Carolina calls for mixed-use, transit-oriented towns and neighborhoods “resembling downtown Chapel Hill,” according to a report in the Raleigh News & Observer. RTP has 90,...
Architect Dhiru Thadani heads the new Town Planning Studio at the Washington office of Ayers Saint Gross. The firm specializes in university campus planning and architecture, and the new studio will focus on urban college town and research park...
If foundations that support the philosophy behind New Urbanism invested their endowments in these projects, they might provide an major source of capital for new urbanist projects. Financing is a persistent frustration for developers of new...
A parking garage and other infrastructure are under construction in Atlantic Station, the 140-acre reclamation of the Atlantic Steel Mill site in Midtown Atlanta (see December 2000 issue). Master developer Jacoby Development has yet to finalize an...
Green Street Properties of Atlanta, an infill development company started by former internet entrepreneur Charles Brewer, has filed plans for Glenwood Park, a 28-acre, mixed-use neighborhood on an abandoned industrial site two miles east of downtown...
The Board of County Commissioners in Sarasota, Florida, has approved a preliminary version of Sarasota 2050, a comprehensive plan that encourages and provides incentives for compact, mixed-use development in the county’s unincorporated areas (see...