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 master plan guides the dramatic revitalization of a once shabby, moribund downtown.
West Palm Beach, Florida, has staged a amazing turnaround in six years since the city hired new urbanists to create a downtown plan. At the start of the decade...
Editor’s note: more coverage of CNU VII appears on page 20 of this issue.
The seventh annual Congress for the New Urbanism, the largest ever, concentrated exclusively on city issues. “There are no suburban projects being shown at CNU VII and that...
CNU is now taking orders for the first edition of Charter, a book of 27 essays and commentary which expand on the principles outlined in the Charter of the New Urbanism, the guiding document of this revolution in the way cities are designed, built,...
A bestselling book by architect Sarah Susanka turns new urbanist concepts inside out by addressing an area often overlooked by the community design movement — the inside of the house. Her argument in The Not So Big House for a better use of space...
A recent article in the Charlotte Observer reported on the trend toward “billboard buildings,” new commercial buildings that serve as a visual trademark for national retail chains in order to be instantly recognized by consumers. “It’s a marketing...
Park DuValle, one of the US Department of Housing and Urban Development’s largest Hope VI projects, is turning out to be a hit with buyers. The 1,200-unit redevelopment of a public housing project in Louisville, Kentucky, is designed by Urban Design...
The Tolkin Group recently won a competition sponsored by the City of Manhattan Beach, California, to develop Metlox Block, a 3-acre, mixed-use extension of downtown. The developer plans to break ground in late 2000 on the project, which was designed...
Fannie Mae, the nation’s largest source of financing for home mortgages, recently committed to invest $1 billion in the four-year “House Washington” initiative. House Washington is a nine-point plan to remove regulatory barriers to residential...
BARRY SPITZNASS, 53, a charter member of the Congress for the New Urbanism, died suddenly on Wednesday, June 2. He was an avid new urbanist who developed several projects in the Bloomington, Illinois, area, including Goose Creek Apartments, Woodland...
As the debate over suburban sprawl heats up nationwide, the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Surface Transportation Policy Project have released a timely book. Once There Were Greenfields: How Urban Sprawl is Undermining America’s...
Correction: an article on page 17 of the March/April 1999 issue misidentified the designers of Concord Village and Eagle Creek in Indianapolis. They are: Tise, Hurwitz & Diamond Inc. and Clyde E. Woods & Associates.
A recent New York Times article featured the New Urbanism as an antidote to the physical and emotional isolation encountered by teenagers living in suburban tract developments such as Littleton, Colorado. Typical suburban developments, with their...