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.
Mike Lydon who left Duany Plater-Zyberk & Co in April and established a firm called The Street Plans
Mike Lydon, who left Duany Plater-Zyberk & Co. in April and established a firm called The Street Plans Collaborative, has taken the lead in devising a SmartCode module that tells how to accommodate bicycling across the rural-to-urban Transect.
Houses in highly walkable neighborhoods sell for about $4,000 to $34,000 more than houses in places that offer just average levels of walkability, according to a study that Joe Cortright of Impresa Inc. conducted for CEOs for Cities. The study, “...
A City of New Orleans draft master plan recommends ripping out the elevated Interstate 10 expressway
A City of New Orleans draft master plan recommends ripping out the elevated Interstate 10 expressway that was built in the late 1960s above Claiborne Avenue — a wide boulevard that once abounded with magnificent live oak trees. Traffic would instead...
CNU’s Board of Directors added four new members earlier this year. In this issue, CNU will briefly profile two of them, Russell Preston and Jack Davis. And then in an upcoming issue, it will profile the two others, Jennifer Hurley and Scott Polikov.
Infrastructure costs are 32 to 47 percent lower in traditional neighborhood development (TND) than in conventional suburban development
“How can we get people to use a place 365 days a year?” is the question that Live Work Learn Play asks as it goes about planning, improving, or reviving a town center, says Max Reim. The firm avoids chain operators, but encourages outstanding...
Michael Dobbins's long experience as a public-sector urban designer imbues Urban Design and People with an in-the-trenches understanding of how to get things done.
Individuals who have played significant roles in New Urbanism did very well in a recent Planetizen poll aimed at identifying “the top 100 urban thinkers.” Andres Duany came in second, Leon Krier eighth, James Howard Kunstler 12th, and Peter...
Taking down a section of interstate highway is unprecedented — but a similar move is being considered in Syracuse, New York, where elevated portions of I-81 run through downtown, inflicting considerable harm on the urban environment. I-81 in...
A four-year effort to place the city of Miami under a new urbanist zoning system failed in August when the City Commission deadlocked on the proposal, known as “Miami 21.” However, the code, which was formulated under the guidance of Duany Plater-...
This month, Vancouver, British Columbia, will begin allowing developers to build condominium units that include “secondary suites” — living quarters that can operate independent of the main portion of each condo. A condo owner could use the...
Cornell, once a star new urban undertaking, falls short on retail within walking distance. ��The failings of Cornell, a signature new urban project north of Toronto, were vividly laid out by a Canadian newspaper, the National Post, on March 13. In...