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.
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...
Holt & Haugh, developers of Fairview Village in Fairview, Oregon, bought out their equity partners in the Chinook Way Apartments, a 124-unit apartment development within the village. The apartments were slow to absorb during the first six months...
A new neighborhood in Breckenridge, Colorado, addresses the need for affordable homes for year-round residents and overcomes the difficulties of building a traditional neighborhood at 9,500 feet. Like many other ski resorts in the Rocky Mountains...
“New Urbanism is not a social service program. A walkable neighborhood will not provide day care and affordable health care for impoverished families, or counseling for substance abusers, or community policing to help control crime. ... New Urbanism...
A group of Canadian urban designers from Toronto has organized the Urban Design Group, associated with the Ontario Professional Planners Institute. Some participants are members of CNU, others are sympathizers; all apply new urbanist principles in...
The Gulch Neighborhood, a high-density mixed-use development Nashville, Tennessee. The $350 million plan, calling for 1,800 residential units and more than a million square feet of retail, was designed by Looney Ricks Kiss of Memphis.
The infill project Media Village combines senior housing, ground-floor retail, and subterranean public parking on a 3-acre block in downtown Burbank, California. Designed by Mark Gangi of Gangi Development, Media Village interacts with the street in...
American Village Properties has designed a site plan for Town Centre West, a 34-acre mixed-use development in the Indianapolis suburb of Carmel, Indiana. The greenfield development site is located in a northwest commercial corridor. The plan...
Cagan Crossings, a town center and apartment development in Orlando, Florida, has gained critical momentum over the last year. The second phase of the project has been completed and the 272 new apartments are 90 percent leased. A newly redesigned...
I’On, a 243-acre new urbanist development in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, was named the Best Community in the Charleston Area for the second year running by the Charleston Trident Home Builders Association.
US Representatives Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) of the House’s Livable Communities Taskforce and Wayne Gilchrist (R-MD) recently reintroduced legislation that would provide $50 million to states, regional programs, and tribal governments to assist in...