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.
With its Smart Growth Matrix (see October/November 2000) and other incentive programs, Austin, Texas, has provided a model for encouraging new urbanist and smart growth projects. In an article in the Institute of Transportation Engineers Journal,...
Baltimore is eyeing a massive, 20-block redevelopment in one of the city’s most blighted neighborhoods. The city has tapped Urban Design Associates (UDA), a Pittsburgh firm with extensive New Urbanism credentials, to lead the planning process. The...
A handful of municipalities around the US have recently approved or are working on codes designed to promote new urbanist planning and development. McKinney, Texas, city planners recently adopted a land-use plan and a new urbanist zoning overlay for...
In another expansion of his smart growth initiative, Gov. Parris Glendening hopes to appoint what may be the nation’s highest ranking state official to deal exclusively with smart growth development. The Maryland General Assembly is considering the...
As part of a restructuring of Post Properties, Senior Executive Vice President Art Lomenick left the company and joined Workplace USA, a Dallas firm specializing in office development in mixed-use projects. Lomenick was in charge of Post’s...
The City Council in Redwood City, California, has approved a plan for revitalizing its downtown. The design by Field Paoli Architects of San Francisco proposes two new structures, covering two city blocks, that will house 80,000 square feet of...
Brad Shapiro, an architect with Looney Ricks Kiss of Memphis for the past 12 years, has formed his own firm, Shapiro & Company Architects also based in Memphis. The firm’s emphasis will be on TND architecture. Shapiro’s work includes designs for...
The US Department of Housing and Urban Development has chosen CNU to run an award program, “The New Face of America's Public Housing.” It will recognize HOPE VI projects that best demonstrate innovation and leadership in the transformation of...
For the first time, new urbanist principles may be applied to the redevelopment of housing in an active military base. The plan is to convert 1950s and 1960s style housing in Fort Lewis in Washington State to a compact, mixed-use neighborhood with...
Las Colinas, a well-known edge city outside of Dallas, recently hired new urbanist planner Andres Duany to design approximately 600 acres on the northeast end of the city. The site, stretching from the city’s east side to the LBJ Freeway, is one of...
HOK Planning Group, a division of Hellmuth, Obata and Kassabaum, Inc. (HOK), one of the world’s largest architecture firms with more than 1,800 employees worldwide, has formed the New Urban Studio. The studio is led by three experienced new urbanist...
“Advance scouts for urban sprawl” is how one commentator characterizes public school systems in the new report from the National Trust for Historic Preservation, Historic Neighborhood Schools in the Age of Sprawl: Why Johnny Can’t Walk to School. At...