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.
The Great Good Place: Cafes, Coffee Shops, Community Centers, Beauty Parlors, General Stores, Bars, Hangouts and How They Get You Through the Day By Ray Oldenburg Marlowe & Company, New York, 1989, 1997 Second Edition. Softcover, 296 pp...
The Florida Keys, a 150-mile-long chain of tiny islands at the southernmost tip of the state, were under such development pressure in the early 1990s that the county placed strict limits on growth through the year 2002. Developers held vested rights...
The Traditional Neighborhood Development (TND) Company was formed by Andres Duany, Robert Kramer and Jeffrey Fleeman. Kramer is an architect and partner with Fleeman in the development of Haile Village Center in Gainesville, Florida, one of the best...
We at New Urban News recently saw an advertisement for 20-plus home plan books from Home Planners Inc. of Tucson, Arizona. Four of the books looked promising from a neotraditional development standpoint: Affordable Home Plans; 200 Narrow-Lot Home...
Abacoa, the 6,000-unit traditional neighborhood development (TND) in Jupiter, Florida, is now under full-scale development. The Montreal Expos and St. Louis Cardinals played their first spring training season in a stadium in the town center, while...
Recognizing that smaller is sometimes better, Wal-Mart announced that it is opening three 40,000 square foot stores in the towns of Springdale, Bentonville and Sherwood, Arkansas. The average size of Wal-Mart stores are 92,000 square feet. The...
Detroit, an urban basketcase in recent decades, is going through a resurgence. Massive development projects in the city include two stadiums and three casinos (scheduled to open in 2001). Furthermore, General Motors is preparing to move its world...
Memphis will go ahead with implementation of its Greenlaw-Manassas Neighborhood Homeowner-ship Zone — although it was not chosen for a 1998 grant. The project is interesting from a new urbanist prospective, because it is located next to (and will...
More than 775 people attended the Congress for the New Urbanism VI in Denver April 30 through May 3, an increase of 150 percent from last year. This growth in attendance caused a few uncomfortably crowded sessions, but also is a sign of the amazing...
A recent letter to the Chapel Hill News, in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, thanked Southern Village developer D.R. Bryan for his “ generosity and vision” in donating a piece of land for a church. “Southern Village will be a lovely development in...
Since its acquisition of Columbus Realty Trust, Post Properties is moving ahead rapidly with the design and construction of new urbanist planning projects. The publicly traded real estate investment trust now has two regional headquarters: Post East...
The town of Markham shows why Canada is way ahead of the U.S. when it comes to “smart growth,” i.e. compact, incremental development. While innovative programs in states like Maryland try to rein in leapfrog sprawl, Markham simply opens up a new...