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.
By Meg CalkinsJohn Wiley & Sons, 2008, 464 pp., $80 hardcoverFinding effective materials that are also environmentally benign is becoming an important task for designers, builders, and developers. This hefty new book by an adviser to the LEED (...
A plan for development in D’Iberville, Mississippi, including a casino district that would complement the waterfront, has been drawn up by Miami architect and planner Jaime Correa for presentation to the city’s Planning Commission Feb. 27 and...
Nashville’s Gulch neighborhood, a 60-acre urban redevelopment, has been certified as a LEED-ND (LEED for Neighborhood Development) project, according to a recent announcement by Mayor Karl Dean and developer MarketStreet Enterprises. “In the past...
A bill being debated in the State of Washington legislature would promote higher-density development around transit stations. The measure is aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions, but is generating significant controversy — especially in areas...
After 13 years as the executive director of the Seaside Institute, Phyllis Bleiweis is retiring to live in Serenbe, a traditional neighborhood development in Palmetto, Georgia. Bleiweis will continue to work as a consultant for the Seaside Institute...
New Urbanism writer Jason Miller is trying to raise money to resurrect a newspaper in Concrete, Washington, that published its last issue in September 1991. Miller, who moved in 2005 to the rural town (named in 1909 after its principal industry),...
The study, “Beltway Burden,” found that in the Washington region, increases in a household’s transportation costs start offsetting the savings from lower housing prices when families live roughly 15-17 miles or more from employment centers.
Measuring the effect of regional growth on carbon dioxide emissions is likely to be on the cutting edge of planning in the next decade.
By Lance Jay Brown, David Dixon, and Oliver GillhamJohn Wiley & Sons, 2009, 304 pp., $80 hardcoverI was suffering a case of compendium burnout, a malady familiar to architectural book reviewers, and I suspected that Urban Design for an Urban...
Contention that dragged on for more than four years between the developer of Clarksburg Town Center in Montgomery County, Maryland, and unhappy residents of that traditional neighborhood development may be ending. Under a ruling from the county’s...
The Portland (Oregon) Bureau of Planning and Sustainability has recently released The Infill Design Toolkit: A guide to integrating infill development into Portland’s neighborhoods. It deals with issues such as parking, quality street frontages, and...
In an effort to promote transit-oriented development, the Portland City Council in January passed a resolution to do away a $20 million cap on the value of developments seeking tax abatements, according to the Daily Journal of Commerce. Under the...