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.
Many home builders believe that attached garages are necessary from a marketing standpoint, but actual buyer choices at two new traditional neighborhood developments (TNDs) where detached garages are optional call that assumption into question....
Dramatic crime reduction has occurred in two public housing projects designed with new urbanist principles.
Two broad approaches can make safe places. The fortress strategy is exemplified by gated communities. New urbanists take the opposite...
The November and December issues of Architecture Magazine contain a lively, two-part debate on the merits of the New Urbanism (NU) by Harvard professor Alex Krieger and noted new urbanist planner Andres Duany. Krieger, a frequent NU critic,...
Essayist Bettina Drew explores the American cultural landscape in Crossing the Expendable Landscape, described as a contemporary urban travelogue dealing with the consequences of built environments that fail to reflect regional, historic, and social...
Sprawl control and “smart growth” emerged as mainstream issues in the November elections, when initiatives limiting state funding for sprawl and implementing urban growth boundaries were approved by voters. In preelection barnstorming speeches for...
The new urbanist redevelopment plan for St. Louis Park Town Center was recently submitted for approval to the Metropolitan Council of St. Louis Park, Minnesota, and is expected to be adopted by the end of January. The project’s three and four-storey...
Some of the nation’s largest retailers, including Home Depot, Wal-mart, and Sears, are opening small, compact stores on selected main street locations. Recent surveys, like one by Kurt Salmon Associates, show a significant (21 percent) increase in...
The report Emerging Trends in Real Estate 1999, by PricewaterhouseCoopers, once again reports that the best real estate investments are metropolitan regions with healthy, pedestrian-oriented downtowns. The top cities — San Francisco, Seattle, New...
The land use plan for Curtis Park West, one of the first new urbanist neighborhoods proposed on a “brownfield,” inner city site, was presented to the Sacramento Planning Commission in November. The first session for the project’s Environmental...
Madison, Georgia, recently adopted a zoning ordinance creating a Traditional Neighborhood District. It requires compact, mixed-use, pedestrian-oriented streets that must be interconnected, with blocks at least 300 feet but no more than 600 feet in...
Brylen Homes is building houses with innovative windows in Amelia Park, a traditional neighborhood development (TND) in Fernandina Beach, Florida. Using a technique that makes aluminum windows appear similar to traditional wood windows, Brylen...
A recent survey shows an unexpected population boom in downtowns across the country. The Brookings Institution Center on Urban and Metropolitan Policy and the Fannie Mae Foundation surveyed 24 major U.S. cities and found that all predict an increase...