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.
Architecture and town planning firm Torti Gallas/CHK and national builder Beazer Homes are collaborating to bring the economics of production building to Hope VI public housing redevelopments in Washington, DC, and Baltimore. In Washington’s...
In Mt Laurel, a TND near Birmingham, Alabama, preserving as many trees as possible is a top priority. “We are not here to rape the land, “ says developer Elton Stephens, “so unlike most developments in the area, we do no mass grading.” On each lot,...
The City Council in North Miami, Florida, has adopted a master plan for the redevelopment of the NE 6th Avenue corridor. A charrette led by the Treasure Coast Regional Planning Council produced proposals for, among other things, narrowing the...
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Baltimore design firm Design Collective has won a competition to design mixed-use residential and retail buildings for a housing development in the Pudong district of Shanghai, China. The firm was awarded a $100,000 prize and the right to negotiate...
The Great Lakes Television Consortium has released “The Sprawling of America,” a comprehensive two-hour documentary in two parts examining land use over the last 50 years. The video is obviously slanted towards smart growth and New Urbanism, and may...
Smart Growth, Better Neighborhoods: Communities Leading the Way, a 204-page report from the Neighborhood Coalition, looks at how community-based organizations are tackling negative consequences of sprawl and divestment in low-income neighborhoods....
Allison Ramsey Architects of Beaufort, SC, has published Carolina Inspirations, a classic collection of house plans featuring a variety of styles and appearances and ranging from cottages less than 500 square feet to homes of more than 3,600 square...
The proposed Montecito Town Center in Las Vegas, billed as the “largest town center in the United States,” is designed with substantial new urbanist elements. The project is on a 254-acre site that the city had planned for a new urbanist type town...
The commercial portion of the mall redevelopment Paseo Colorado in Pasadena, California, is 90 percent leased and ready to open in September. Exterior construction of the residential buildings will be completed at the same time, and the first...
New urbanist developer Vince Graham, a partner in acclaimed TNDs I’On and Newpoint, has run into political interference in Norfolk, Virginia. Graham’s firm, Civitas, was chosen as the developer of East Beach, a 100-acre project designed in 1994 by...
Federal Realty Investment Trust appears to be succeeding with its new urbanist projects in the Washington, DC, area. Bethesda Row, which includes 340,000 square feet of shops, offices, and restaurants in downtown Bethesda, Maryland, is 99.6 percent...