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.
Urban Design Associates has published a textbook on pattern books for the Institute of Traditional Architecture. The book describes methods and includes various UDA pattern books, such as Ray Gindroz’s pattern book for Celebration. Pattern books...
The six neighborhoods that make up Baltimore’s Midtown district contains some of the city’s finest residential architecture and many cultural and educational institutions. But the neighborhoods are in decline, rowhouses are dilapidated and there is...
Envision Design of Berkeley, California, won a competition to design the revitalization of Isla Vista, California. Consultants David Sargent of Sargent Town Planning and transportation planners Nelson/Nygaard assisted in the proposal. The team is...
The Local Government Commission in Sacramento, California, has published an expanded and revised edition of Building Livable Communities: A Policymaker’s Guide to Infill Development, first released in 1995. The handbook includes a new chapter on...
McGraw-Hill has published a CD Rom, Architectural Elements: Traditional Construction Details, with 1,300 CAD-compatible traditional standard details by architect Stephen Mouzon. A book version is expected to be released shortly. Contact: (256) 539-...
In its latest report, Driven to Spend, the Surface Transportation Policy Project (STPP) set out to determine how sprawl patterns and public transit choice affect people’s transportation budgets. STPP concluded that residents spend most on...
New interactive site provides a wealth of information.
The CNU website, CNU.org, went through a transformation at the end of
April. It now has a new look and contains many times more information than ever before. The new site is designed to...
Houston’s Main Street is getting a face-lift, to create a transit-oriented environment in preparation for coming light rail. In 1999, Mayor Lee Brown created the Main Street Coalition, a public/private partnership, for the purpose of transforming...
Avalon at Arlington Square, which opened its doors this January in Arlington, Virginia, is a new urbanist take on the rental apartment community. Master planned by Torti Gallas/CHK of Silver Spring, Maryland, (in collaboration with SKG Architects...
The first homes are selling well in Del Paso Nuevo, a 150-acre TND in Sacramento, California, under construction with the help of $10.4 million in grants and loans from the US Department of Housing and Urban Development. The houses, the first of...
Eight new townhomes, each designed with flex space for home office use, will be built in Avalon Park’s town center by American Heritage Homes. Located southeast of Orlando, Avalon Park is a fast-selling project with many new urbanist design elements...
The second phase of the satellite city of Bahcesehir, 30 minutes west of Istanbul, Turkey, was designed by Torti Gallas and Partners/CHK using new urbanist principles. The completed 3,500-unit first phase is a conventional mix of identical high-rise...