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Taking the streets message to Washington

CNU's booklet on sustainable street network principles strikes a chord during the Transportation Research Board annual conference.

Regulations that promote sprawl are ebbing

The overall trend is toward a more place-based, character-based legal environment, according to one of the authors of the Codes Study.

Undoing a huge mistake — the Rochester Inner Loop boulevard proposal

The Inner Loop is a 2.75-mile-long freeway that put a noose around the downtown of Rochester, New York.

Drunk? Safer to drive than walk, says economist

A disingenuous and wrongheaded story is aired on NPR.

Why we changed our name

The website recently shifted from New Urban Network to Better! Cities & Towns. This month, we will change the name of our print newsletter as well.

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News and Opinion Online

The truth about traffic studies

Washington City Paper

Some think traffic studies underestimate coming congestion. Others say an overly rosy assessment would hurt the consultant who produces it.

Fri, Jan 27th 2012 5:20pm

The DNA of place and the ROI of movement

Hazel Borys, Better! Cities & Towns

Cycling and walking investments return up to $11.80 for every $1 invested — why aren't we jumping at that kind of value for transportation expenditures?

2 Fri, Jan 27th 2012 9:38am

Taking the streets message to Washington

Better! Cities & Towns

CNU's booklet on sustainable street network principles strikes a chord during the Transportation Research Board annual conference.

Thu, Jan 26th 2012 1:53pm

War's end could help fund US infrastructure

Better! Cities & Towns

Obama says the Iraq pullout could allow more spending at home, but transportation gets short shrift in the State of the Union.

Wed, Jan 25th 2012 1:35pm

Why cities are unaffordable

Robert Steuteville, Better! Cities & Towns

Cities and towns would do better to focus on more effective regulations and find ways to make them as streamlined as possible.

6 Tue, Jan 24th 2012 3:36pm

Fallacies against the grid

Paul Knight, Better! Cities & Towns

Though criticized, the grid has given us places of the most vibrant, lively, and varied character; places of every kind and every use.

14 Mon, Jan 23rd 2012 10:05am

Irish diversion

Charles Marohn, Better! Cities & Towns

What started with crazy lending by a handful of Irish banks has become the indentured servitude of the Irish people to German banks and the European Union.

Mon, Jan 23rd 2012 9:51am

Big Apple takes proactive zoning approach

Wall Street Journal Online

New York City was the first US city to adopt zoning — in 1916. Now the city is taking the lead in making zoning a proactive tool for livability, says this report.

Sat, Jan 21st 2012 12:01pm

The half-life of anger

Ben Brown, Better! Cities & Towns

Let’s don’t fall into the trap of assuming that passion of any sort is permanent and that we should contort processes and policies to channel it.

Fri, Jan 20th 2012 2:35pm

Regulations that promote sprawl are ebbing

Better! Cities & Towns

The overall trend is toward a more place-based, character-based legal environment, according to one of the authors of the Codes Study.

3 Fri, Jan 20th 2012 9:25am

The town that said 'No' to a beltway

The New York Times

Golden, Colorado, has doggedly fought metropolitan Denver's loop freeway for decades, seeing it as a threat to the community.

Wed, Jan 18th 2012 12:29pm

Depressed home prices hurt municipal budgets

The Washington Post

The bust in housing values that began in 2007 has just begun to ravage property tax revenues across the US.

5 Tue, Jan 17th 2012 6:17pm

Rumors of light rail death in Detroit exaggerated

Better! Cities & Towns

After a light rail line was cancelled by Mayor Dave Bing in December, private investors and US DOT refused to give up on the idea. A scaled-down version has been proposed.

Tue, Jan 17th 2012 10:23am

LeCorbusier: the Pol Pot of architecture

City Journal

Why does a man of harsh, totalitarian instincts continue to be venerated?

9 Mon, Jan 16th 2012 4:37pm

Headlines

America’s Demographic Future

New Geography

Friday Read: Mixed-Income Housing, Prussian-Style

Old Urbanist

Surely You Can’t Be Serious

Joe Urban

Mixed-Use Building Proposed for West Fond du Lac Avenue

Urban Milwaukee

Massive funding cuts at ODOT pose threat for Cincinnati-area projects

UrbanCincy

Anti-Sprawl Doctor to Host PBS Series on Urban Design and Public Health

Streetsblog Capitol Hill

House Transportation Bill “a March of Horribles”

Streetsblog Capitol Hill

Celebrating Success and Friendship at the Complete Streets Dinner

Complete Streets

Friday Photos Friday, 27. January 2012

Urban Milwaukee

Photos of the new Seven Corners bus depot

BeyondDC

Currently in print

Opportunity for urbanists: Occupy Wall Street

There’s tremendous capital waiting to be invested in urban real estate, but capital funds managers face a gap in experience and expertise.

Odd spots in the urban grid? Turn them into plazas

New York City’s Department of Transportation has carved 54 plazas out of streets and other areas. More are on the way.

Commentary: No room for sense and vision

The $95 million Sustainable Communities planning grant program was a minuscule speck in the $3.7 trillion 2012 federal budget.

Sustainable Communities grants eliminated, Choice Neighborhoods increases, TIGER survives

The agreement preserves funding for transit and the innovative TIGER grants program, while zeroing out high-speed rail

Urbanism blossoming near Georgia university

A Mercer University initiative, with aid from the Knight Foundation, and a class trip to confer with Richard Florida result in “The Lofts at Mercer Village.”

Protecting historic buildings from destructive additions

Defenders of traditional architecture are pressing for a new interpretation of troublesome Interior Department standards.

Realtors: Buyers prefer smart growth to sprawl

Americans prefer smart growth to conventional suburbia by a 56 percent to 43 percent margin.

Planners and public health specialists must team up

To create healthy places, America needs to groom leaders who combine techniques from planning and public health, a new book says.

What the doctors prescribe

In the 24 chapters of Making Healthy Places, some four dozen contributors offer information and advice on a wide variety of health and planning issues.

Deeply lived-in plazas

Edited by Chris Wilson and Stefanos Polyzoides
Photographs by Miguel Gandert
Trinity University Press, 2011, 338 pp. $45 hardcover