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.
The proposal for a five-acre new urban village in Southport, Connecticut, designed during a charrette in October 2000, has been turned down once, but the developer and designers will soon submit a revised plan. “It’s been a raucous public process,”...
The Inner City Christian Federation (ICCF), a nonprofit development company that has built affordable housing in Grand Rapids, Michigan, for nearly 30 years, recently joined with new urbanist professionals in a charrette that generated a master plan...
The Southern California Association of Governments has selected a team headed by John Fregonese and Peter Calthorpe to lead a “ Growth Visioning” project, one of the largest such exercises undertaken to date. The region has a population exceeding 15...
The Brookings Institution has released “The Link Between Growth Management and Housing Affordability: The Academic Evidence,” which concludes that housing prices are primarily determined by the strength of local demand for housing. The report...
As American-style sprawl begins to take root, two German academics argue that the New Urbanism is the missing link in the strategies to preserve and renew cities. In Berlin, an infill project showcases the principles in action.
The German...
A growing number of governors and state legislatures introduce bills to update planning statutes and promote smart growth principles.
By sheer volume alone, the state-level activity on planning reform is impressive. Between 1999 and 2001, lawmakers...
International Making Cities Livable is hosting its annual conference in Alpbach & Salzburg, Austria, on September 15-19. Conference topics include: New Urban Neighborhoods, Community Participation in Planning & Design, and more. To submit...
Infill projects dominate as three design firms take home multiple awards.
Winners of the second annual Charter Awards were selected by a distinguished jury over the weekend of March 16. After spending days perusing more than 200 submissions from...
One of the largest Hope VI redevelopments, City West, is gearing up in Cincinnati, Ohio, near the downtown and neighborhoods affected by last year’s riots. The redevelopment of adjacent public housing projects, Lincoln Court and Laurel Homes, will...
Developer Earl Robertson has completed the first apartment building in the Lowell Neighborhood, an infill project in downtown Colorado Springs. The four-story building includes 14 units and is built next to a recently renovated, 108-year-old school...
The Revitalization Corp., chartered by the District of Columbia, has unveiled plans for a redevelopment of the southwest Potomac River waterfront into a mixed-use, pedestrian friendly neighborhood center. Plans call for apartments, shops and cafes,...
In San Diego, Mayor Dick Murphy’s City of Villages strategy is moving closer to becoming the framework for future growth in the city. The strategy’s goal is to channel growth into compact, walkable town centers and neighborhoods, and the mayor is...