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.
A CNU task force initiative confronts fire officials’ aversion to narrow streets.
The dilemma is one familiar to most new urbanist designers and developers.
CNU 2000 in Portland, Oregon, draws a record crowd of 1,400.
Developers, public officials, representatives from nonprofit community development corporations and municipal planners came to Portland in large numbers and made the eighth annual...
England is feeling the effects of sprawl. According to the Danish architecture magazine Arkitekten, almost 70 percent of the youngest English school children walked to school in 1971 — now less than 10 percent do so. Fearful that English cities may...
The U.S. Conference of Mayors recently released its third annual brownfields report in which 231 cities provided information on the status of industrial sites in their communities. The report estimates that the cities hold more than 21,000...
Since 1995, the City of Aspen, Colorado, has had a set of residential design standards for new construction intended to preserve the scale and character of established neighborhoods. Front facades of all principal structures must be parallel to the...
Morrison Homes, the nation’s 30th largest homebuilder with revenues of $518 million and 2,639 units built in 1999, is expanding its work in traditional neighborhood developments (TNDs). The company began working in Celebration three years ago and...
Recognizing that sprawl is probably the biggest local environmental issue in northern Georgia, the Georgia Conservancy has become one of the first environmental groups to become actively involved in land use planning.
A recent Washington Post article reported on a “new crusade” for pedestrian safety. “It is a small but growing uprising against the excesses of the nation’s car culture,” reports the Post, which cites grass roots programs in a half dozen cities...
Tim Hernandez, who led Pulte Homes’ failed effort to build the TND Salamanca in West Kendall, Florida, has formed his own company, New Urban Communities, based in Delray Beach. The firm will focus on developing smaller infill projects in downtowns...
Belmont, North Carolina, was one of the first municipalities nationwide to have a traditional neighborhood development (TND) ordinance. Now it appears that the municipality may get its first TND. The $40 million project will convert a historic...
Zoning ordinances in Fort Collins, CO; Huntersville, NC; and Austin, TX; are case studies of approaches to changing municipal land use regulations.
In response to encroaching sprawl, a small number of municipal planners
and elected officials...
In Canada’s foremost laboratory for the New Urbanism, planners knit together many projects to create a ring of interconnected neighborhoods around the existing town.
Markham was among the first municipalities in North America to adopt a new...