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.
One of the fastest growing municipalities in Arizona, Prescott Valley has changed from entirely rural to suburban in the last two decades, and has never had a downtown. Now, public officials in Prescott Valley are following a nationwide trend to...
Builders in Cherry Hill Village, Canton Township, Michigan, were prepared to use vinyl siding throughout most of their 350-acre traditional neighborhood development. Architectural codes were drafted by designer Looney Ricks Kiss governing the use...
The website will have New Urbanism resources and portals to other sites.
Avirtual city has been proposed to promote New Urbanism (NU) via the Internet. The suggested name is Izbal, after a mythical Mayan city (this name is not final, and there...
Joseph Riley, the mayor of Charleston, South Carolina, for the past 25 years, was selected to receive the $100,000, first annual J.C. Nichols Prize for Visionary Urban Development from the Urban Land Institute. Riley has overseen a substantial...
Voters in Clearwater, Florida, rejected (58 percent to 42 percent) a plan to revitalize their downtown using new urbanist principles. The $300 million project by developer George de Guardiola would have brought 320,000 square feet of retail, a 250-...
The Regional City, a new book from Peter Calthorpe, will be in book stores in October. The book is co-authored by William Fulton, president of the Ventura, California, Solimar Research Group and editor of the newsletter California Planning and...
Mockingbird Station, a 10-acre transit-oriented development in Dallas, is under construction and scheduled to open in 2000. Designed by RTKL, the development includes 216 loft apartments, an eight screen movie theater, and more than 90 shops and...
HomeStyles.com, the company behind the TND Series and the website TNDhomes.com, has issued a call for house plans to architects and designers. HomeStyles.com seeks plans for simple, elegant starter homes with modest floor plans and live/work...
Tyson’s Corner, Virginia, has two major malls, 35 million square feet of office space (more than many large cities), and represents the apex of sprawl in the Washington, D.C., area. It would be hard to find a more pedestrian unfriendly place, but...
In response to Wisconsin’s new smart growth law, the City of South Milwaukee is developing a new comprehensive plan. The plan will address urban design, streetscapes, storefronts in the downtown, and economic development. The city hired HNTB...
Dates are set for CNU IX. Even as you nurse away the jet-lag from CNU 2000, it’s time to put in your Priceline bids, book a hotel room, and reserve a space flight at the new Rose Center for Earth and Space. CNU IX is in New York City, and we expect...
The Newpoint Corners Store opened for business in early April in Newpoint, a TND near Beaufort, South Carolina. The 1,100-square-foot store carries everything from soap to specialty foods, from wine to greeting cards and penny candy. Proprietor...