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 new urbanist plan unites public officials, citizens, and developers over a contentious transit-oriented project in the San Francisco Bay area.
The extensive surface parking around the transit station in Pleasant Hill, California, has been the...
The nation’s fastest-growing suburban centers also provide opportunities for new urbanist development.
The populations of Irving and Plano, both suburbs of Dallas, have grown by 7,211 percent and 5,909 percent respectively since census figures...
Partners for Livable Communities released The Livable City: Revitalizing Urban Communities. The report includes facts, profiles and best practices. Contact: www.livable.com.
The Planetizen website (www. planetizen.com) has named the all-time top 20 books on urban planning. The list is topped by The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs, followed by Lewis Mumford’s The City in History. Among the most...
Research at the University of Southern California finds that demographics and social change are brewing up tremendous demand for "dense, walkable neighborhoods."
Researchers at the University of Southern California have released a study that...
Coastal Living Magazine’s 2001 Idea House has opened in Habersham, a TND in Beaufort County, South Carolina.
A bipartisan group of US Representatives from New York and Massachusetts have introduced the Brownfield Redevelopment Incentives Act in the House. The Act would fund site assessment and cleanup on abandoned industrial sites.
The City of Lenexa, Kansas, has signed a letter of intent with the Gainesville, Florida-based Haile Group to develop a new urbanist city center. A preliminary plan for the 62-acre site has been created by urban designer Michael Morrissey and Haile...
Work has begun on the commercial town center in Lowry, the redevelopment of an 1,866-acre Air Force base on the Denver/Aurora town line in Colorado. A 50,000 sq. ft. Al-bertson’s supermarket anchors the town center, which will include 118,000 square...
New urbanist design firm Correa Valle Valle of Coral Gables, Florida, has won two smart growth awards for its charrette and plan for a redevelopment of a historic industrial neighborhood in Asheville, North Carolina.
Morrison Homes, a national building firm with experience in several new urbanist developments, has conducted a study to determine how appreciation rates in three traditional neighborhood developments (TNDs), Kentlands, Celebration, and Laguna West,...
John Anderson of New Urban Builders offers 10 tips on designing neighborhoods and homes for energy conservation in sunny north central California: 1) Orient the long side of a rectilinear block running north/south — this allows narrow and deep lots...