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.
Edward Bohrer Jr., the four-term mayor of Gaithersburg, Maryland, died on August 27 at the age of 58. A public servant of vision and integrity, he was an important role model in the early days of the New Urbanism.
Together with developer Joe...
Public officials increasingly are soliciting the construction of traditional neighborhood developments (TNDs). Orlando, Florida, set the standard for encouraging a TND: the city’s efforts generated proposals by leading new urbanists to redevelop a...
The link is getting stronger between new mass transit lines and pedestrian-oriented development. Transit-oriented new urbanist projects recently designed and/or under construction include Orenco Station, Peterkort Station and Portland International...
CNU’s Board of Directors is reaching out to leaders of environmental organizations. At their Board meeting in October, they’ll be meeting with representatives of national and regional environmental advocacy groups. The aim is to initiate a two-way...
The Wealth of Cities, Revitalizing the Centers of American Life By John O. Norquist Addison-Wesley, Reading, Massachusetts, 1998. Hardcover, 227 pp., $25.00 U.S.; $34.95 Canada. Milwaukee Mayor John O. Norquist has produced a treatise for...
The Charter of the New Urbanism states that “civic, institutional and commercial activity should be embedded in neighborhoods and districts, not isolated in remote, single-use complexes. Schools should be sized and located to enable children to walk...
Nine years after it was designed, Playa Vista, a large-scale new urbanist project in Los Angeles, is under construction. But the legal troubles that have plagued the project are not over. Lawsuits by local environmentalists held Playa Vista up for...
Inner City Task Force members are working with HUD to put together another program to train public housing officials in new urbanist design. It will be modeled after the successful Harvard seminar led by CNU in 1996.
CNU’s Charter Book is up and running, once again. Michael Leccese and Kathleen McCormick of Fountainhead Communications have recently been hired as editors of this forthcoming book elaborating on the Charter of the New Urbanism. We hope to have the...
The Seaside Neighborhood School opened in 1997. In terms of public schools, nothing like it has been built in decades. The building resembles a 100-year-old New England meeting house, albeit one equipped with modern, handicapped accessible...
As defined by New Urban News, TNDs generally include an interconnected networks of streets and blocks, a clear neighborhood center (or centers, in the case of large projects), a mix of uses and housing types, a compact form, and pedestrian-oriented...
Transit lines are planned for two large traditional neighborhood developments (TNDs): Addison Circle (Addison, Texas) and King Farm (Rockville, Maryland). Both of these TNDs feature high residential density, plus significant retail and office space...