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.
As the nation’s largest financier of commercial and residential real estate, Bank of America wields considerable influence in the market, and the bank now claims it wants to use that influence to make the market more attentive to environmental...
Top West Coast new urbanist projects and plans were recognized at the Smart Growth conference in San Diego, when the Local Government Commission’s Center for Livable Communities presented its annual Ahwahnee Awards.
The awards for projects built in...
Pulte Homes’ Florida region remains committed to trying New Urbanism after Salamanca’s defeat.
Pulte Homes, the nation’s largest home builder, has struggled for three years to get approval for Salamanca, a 160-acre traditional neighborhood...
Market Square in Gaithersburg, Maryland, is probably the most significant new urbanist retail development to open in 1999. Market Square is a new downtown shared by Kentlands and Lakelands, adjacent traditional neighborhood developments (TNDs)...
New Jersey’s FY 2000 budget includes $3 million for “Smart Growth Planning Grants” to assist counties and other government agencies in developing plans that “lead to reasonable managed growth strategies that will be translated into ordinances.” The...
A first-of-its-kind study measuring market demand for new urbanist housing in the Philadelphia region is being funded by the GreenSpace Alliance of Southeastern Pennsylvania and 10,000 Friends of Pennsylvania. The study, by Zimmerman-Volk Associates...
A visit to new urbanist communities in Oregon inspired South Dakota developer Doug Metcalf to bring aspects of TND to Brandon, a city of 6,000 inhabitants outside Sioux Falls. Metcalf designed the 40-acre Tall Grass Village adjacent to an upscale...
Midtown Commons, a 79-acre traditional neighborhood development (TND) near Madison, Wisconsin, is planned to become the focal point of the approximately 500-acre High Point/Raymond neighborhood now beginning construction. Though Midtown Commons is...
The Seaside Institute’s conference December 2
through 5, Building and Rebuilding Traditional Neighborhoods, promises to take participants on a step-by-step journey through the development and redevelopment process and will offer case studies of...
Florida Gov. Jeb Bush is eliminating funding for the Eastward Ho! program as of September, 2000. The program promotes infill development in Eastern Florida, and provides about a million dollars annually to pay for smart growth planning by the...
Transit oriented development (TOD) is becoming a crucial part of the effort to control Atlanta’s sprawl and smog problems. The effort got a boost in January when Bell South announced that it would join the fight against traffic congestion and sprawl...
CNU's long-awaited book, Charter of the New Urbanism, will be available in time for Christmas. This book is a collection of essays and commentary by 35 leading new urbanist thinkers. Each writer starts with a sentence from CNU's 1994 Charter and...