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.
This Congress for the New Urbanism and the movement in general have been getting a lot of media attention, both positive and negative. The good
news is that CNU issues — building real neighborhoods and livable streets, promoting compact regional...
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...
The Town of Seaside, Florida, received tremendous visibility through The Truman Show, a Paramount movie directed by Peter Weir and starring Jim Carrey. Filmed in 1997 on location at Seaside, the movie opened to great reviews at the end of May, 1998...
More than 800 designers, planners, developers, activists, environmentalists and politicians participated in CNU VI in Denver. This represented a 180 percent increase in attendance from CNU V in Toronto. Approximately one-third of the attendees were...
The costs of the New Urbanism still are a subject of intense debate, as indicated by an analysis by the Real Estate and Building Industry Coalition (REBIC), based in Charlotte, North Carolina. REBIC has an ax to grind — the group objects to zoning...
At more than 19 square miles, the Mesa del Sol property in Albuquerque, New Mexico, is the largest undeveloped parcel of urban land under single ownership near a central business district in North America, according to the New Mexico Land Office,...
An abundance of books have come out of interest to new urbanists. These include: The Wealth of Cities: Revitalizing the Centers of American Life, by Mayor John Norquist of Milwaukee, a dedicated new urbanist; Architecture: Choice or Fate, by Leon...
The National Building Museum is seeking to raise $50,000 to $100,000 from foundations, businesses and other groups to mount an exhibit, The New Urbanism and the Future of Community. It would be presented in a 3,000 square foot gallery in the former...
Sales have picked up in traditional neighborhood developments (TNDs) in the last two years, according to an analysis by John Schleimer of Market Perspectives in Roseville, California. A survey of sales in selected projects was conducted in April,...
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...