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.
Kevin Kelly, a developer who sold his share in Civano, a Tucson new urbanist project earlier this year, now has a new Arizona project north of Nogales, Arizona. Kelly was hired by developers Art Martori, Jerry Dixon and Al Wareing to revive a 5,200...
St. Joe Company broke ground in September on Southwood, a 3,200- acre traditional neighborhood development (TND) project near Tallahassee, Florida.
A $115 million federal Hope VI project , the New East Capitol, is moving forward in Washington, DC. The project will consist of the demolition of 1,100 public housing units and construction of a mixed-income community of 555 units, a neighborhood...
The Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) is running a controversial $1 million ad campaign using sprawl as a reason to limit immigration. The group claims that sprawl is caused, for the most part, by mass immigration. Anti-sprawl groups...
The Town Council of Huntington Township, New York, has selected Ron Stein as the municipality’s first smart growth coordinator. Stein founded the nonprofit group Vision Huntington, which spearheaded an effective campaign to get public officials and...
Historic American Towns along the Atlantic Coast, a book by Warren Boerschenstein of the University of Virginia, surveys more than 140 towns that have survived in relative isolation and features detailed discussions of nine of these human-scale...
A Texas project is selling a lot of homes at an affordable price, while maintaining the essence of the New Urbanism.
Before breaking ground on Plum Creek in Kyle, Texas, Steve Tucker of Benchmark Land Development went on a tour of famous new...
A new advocacy coalition, Smart Growth America, releases report on Americans’ changing attitudes toward sprawl. Americans are ready for new approaches to managing growth in their communities, the new poll suggests. Seventy-eight percent of...
The first tangible results of the state’s push for a new paradigm are becoming visible, but the commitment of some local governments lags behind.
Maryland’s smart growth initiative helped to spark a national debate on land use shortly after it...
Kendall, Florida, has a new urbanist master plan for a new downtown (see January/February 2000 issue) and an ordinance to turn the plan into reality. But the fate of Dadeland Mall, the thriving enclosed mall which lies at the heart of the Downtown...
In the mountainous West, where land is plentiful and people scarce, the New Urbanism has found little application to date. In Idaho, however, the Village at Hidden Springs in Ada County outside Boise is the first attempt at building a walkable town...
David Weekly Homes is the latest builder to join neotraditional Avalon Park in east Orlando, Florida. Weekly purchased 90 home sites in the fast-selling project, and will offer homes ranging from $200,000 to $350,000. Weekly is already building in...