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.
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) announced $571 million in Hope VI program grants to redevelop public housing in 21 cities. A number of these projects will use new urbanist design to create new, mixed-income neighborhoods...
Charter of the New Urbanism: Region/Neighborhood, District, and Corridor/Block, Street, and Building
By the Congress for the New Urbanism McGraw Hill, New York, 1999. Large paperback, 194 pp., $49.95. Contact: 415-495-2255. Every new urbanist should have a copy of the Charter book. Critics should have a copy, too, so that they really know...
According to the International Council of Shopping Centers, approximately 43,000 shopping centers and 1,800 enclosed malls operate in the U.S. Finding prognostications about how many of these are in trouble is not difficult. Ten years ago American...
Elements of walkable neighborhoods are marketing pluses, with the exception of higher density.
Consumers pick new urbanist (NU) community design characteristics over conventional suburban development (CSD) in most categories, according to...
Walgreen Co. has signed an agreement with the City of Chicago to follow new urban design guidelines in the construction of 35 Walgreens drugstores in the city during the next two years. The guidelines are designed to prevent construction of suburban...
Stephen Roulac, a real estate consultant, economist, and “futurist” frequently covers the New Urbanism on his radio show, Stephen Roulac Property Conversation. The show is broadcast every Tuesday at 12 noon on WALE AM 990, serving 3.5 million...
Lend Lease Real Estate Investments Inc. and PricewaterhouseCoopers recently published Emerging Trends in Real Estate 2000, which continues to promote the “24-hour cities” concept as the key to profitable long-term real estate investments. The annual...
n The first residents will move into Austin Ranch in The Colony, Texas, in the spring of 2000. The 5,000-unit project is planned by RTKL, Calthorpe Associates, and BGO Architects. The first phase includes 548 apartment units near the future mixed-...
Continuum Partners of Denver, Colorado, has
submitted plans for Bradburn Village, a 112-acre TND to be located in Westminster, a municipality between Denver and Boulder. The master plan was conceived by Duany Plater-Zyberk & Co. Civitas will...
The Urban Land Institute (ULI) recently gave its annual Award for Excellence in the Mixed-Use Small Scale category to East Pointe, an eight-block development in Milwaukee. The jury characterized East Pointe as a model for joint public and private...
Architectural firm Robert Orr & Associates (ROA) of New Haven, Connecticut, has completed a vision plan for the improvement of downtown West Hartford, Connecticut. The city administration had been introduced to the New Urbanism by architect...
The development of farmland, forest, and other open space accelerated rapidly in the 1990s, according to recent government figures. The rate of “greenfield” development was more than three million acres a year from 1992 to 1997 – double the rate of...