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.
We’d like to thank Architecture magazine for explaining The Truman Show,
Peter Weir’s blockbuster 1998 movie. We saw it, and thought it was about a megalomaniac television producer who keeps the fictional show’s star, Truman Burbank (played by Jim...
At the end of 1996, the fast-growing City of Genoa, Illinois, adopted a comprehensive plan calling for pedestrian-oriented, mixed-use hamlets and neighborhoods in most undeveloped areas. The first major development proposed under the new plan...
The vigor of the New Urbanism is reflected in the myriad subdisciplines within the movement. Three members of the Congress for the New Urbanism — Michael Garber, John Anderson and Thomas DiGiovanni — have created a well researched and superbly...
The Congress for the New Urbanism and the Local Government Commission jointly received a $250,000 grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in June for a two-year demonstration project in five older suburban cities near Los Angeles....
Harriet Tregoning, director of urban and economic development at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, reports that 94 to 95 percent of development in the U.S. is on “greenfield,”or undeveloped, sites. Even with a tenfold increase in infill (a...
PrimRose Beach, a planned 75-acre traditional neighborhood development (TND) in Corolla, North Carolina, is similar in its beach location, radial grid pattern of streets and scale of blocks and lots to Seaside, Florida, the first modern-day TND....
At the ULI/CNU meeting, opening statements were made by CNU Boardchairman and Seaside developer Robert Davis on the state of development patterns in the the U.S. Here are excerpts:
For five millennia, we have built towns and cities with strong...
Total infrastructure and development costs per unit and per capita are slightly lower for New Urbanism compared to conventional suburban development (CSD), according to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation. The theoretical study was completed...
Recent articles in two major dailies, the Seattle Times (April 4 and 11) and the Chicago Tribune (June 20), show that the mainstream press is becoming more sophisticated about the New Urbanism. Both articles were prompted by new urbanist...
The New Urbanism is having a significant impact on production home building in North America, but much of that impact is superficial — phony marketing of “community” and attempts to create a traditional “look” with architectural clutter, for example...
“An argument can be made that the new towns contribute to the further dispersion and deterioration of the core.” —Architect Harvey Gantt (May, 1998)
“Instead of focusing all of our energies on building new neotraditional towns, we should...
The U.S. Department of Housing and Development (HUD) will not pay 100 percent of future Hope 6 projects, according to Elinor Bacon, deputy assistant secretary. HUD has been concerned about the cost of Hope 6, which is producing some of the most...