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.
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...
Post Properties and Federal Realty Trust, two real estate investment trusts that have invested heavily in The New Urbanism, have announced a strategic alliance. The companies will jointly develop mixed-use urban projects with “main street retail”...
Leading new urbanists are working together to create a new school of architecture that focuses on traditional architecture and design. The Institute of Traditional Architecture will be based on a formal apprenticeship system similar to the one used...
An analysis by the Texas Transportation Institute shows that road widening has had virtually no impact on the growth of traffic congestion in major urban areas in the last 15 years. The analysis by the Surface Transportation Policy Project (STPP), a...
The I’On Builders Guild was created by the developers of I’On, a traditional neighborhood development (TND) in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina. The guild is a screening and educational system for builders and home designers in the 243-acre project....
A “Vision Book” series is used to focus potential buyers on homes in Habersham, a traditional neighborhood development (TND) in Beaufort County, South Carolina. The beautifully illustrated custom book series by Design Traditions in Atlanta explains...
CNU has been asked by HUD to organize and conduct a training seminar for recipients of Hope VI funding (the program aimed at rebuilding public housing and reconnecting it with surrounding communities). The session will be held in conjunction with...
Tennessee has approved a law requiring metropolitan regions to adopt urban growth boundaries (UGBs) by July, 2001. Unlike Oregon’s UGBs, which strongly restrict growth outside of the boundary, Tennessee’s law allows medium to low density growth...
In an important and long overdue report by a major environmental group on the costs of sprawl, the Sierra Club released “The Dark side of the American Dream: The Costs and Consequences of Suburban Sprawl” on September 9, 1998.
“Sprawl is more than...
New urbanist towns and neighborhoods are almost always compromised in some way when they are built. Can flawed projects still foster community and pedestrian activity to a much greater degree than conventional suburbia?
Jeff Townsend, a...
In Portland, Oregon, the Westside Max light rail line opened in September, 1998, and looks like a big success. Just two weeks after the 18-mile, $800 million line opened, light rail ridership in Portland was 22 percent above projections. Part of the...