Smart Growth

Smart growth is a holistic urban planning philosophy that aims to reshape cities in a more environmentally sustainable and community-driven manner. Often considered the antidote to sprawling new suburban development, advocates of smart growth favor high-density development within a city's existing footprint.

Policies supporting suburban development and single family home ownership has led to the sprawling growth of urban, suburban, and exurban communities. Each new development requires further expansion of public services and longer commutes, proportionately expanding the environmental degradation that results from such activities. Smart growth has evolved over the last 30 years to combat this trend by promoting the following elements:

• Building a unique sense of place and community around the existing city
• Involving citizens in transparent, consistent development decisions
• Filling in neighborhoods to create mixed-use communities
• Providing a range of integrated living options for households of mixed incomes
• Promoting a broader range of transportation options, including walking and public mass transit
• Preserving open space and allowing controlled citizen access

[Page 453]These elements can be built into a community's master planning process, and then regulated by policy mechanisms, such as zoning laws, environmental impact assessment requirements, and tax credits. Proponents of this school of thought believe that their communities can significantly reduce the environmental impact of growth while fostering more physically healthy citizens who have deeper ties with their neighbors. Opposing arguments vary, but generally include at least one of the following: that smart growth elements do not actually reduce costs or pollution from public services; that it is simply not a viable option for most American cities given the desires of their residents; or that any economic growth will only continue to degrade the natural environment and ultimately cause much social suffering.

As with many broad philosophies or schools of thought, the concepts within smart growth cannot be attributed to a single person. Controls of growth were introduced in the 1960s, and broader growth management strategies developed throughout the 1970s and 1980s. These changes, and the smart growth movement that resulted, signified a more nuanced understanding of growth, as well as a growing environmental ethic and concern of the cost of public services. Suburbs were becoming exurbs. Cities were not just growing outward, but were abandoning their historic, center neighborhoods and re-creating the structures of communities on the borders of town. Driving a personal automobile became necessary for every daily task, and citizens began having less interaction with their neighbors. Smart growth ideas developed to promote long-term thinking, including the three pillars of sustainability—society, environment, and finances—over the short-term economic decisions that had led to these problems.

In the United States, architects Peter Calthorpe and Andres Duany, founding members of the Congress for the New Urbanism in 1993, were two of the primary advocates of redesigning urban planning thinking. Calthorpe spoke of “urban villages,” and Duany supported using design codes to encourage a sense of community, while both emphasized alternative transportation options. Urban planner Travis McPhee is thought to have coined the term smart growth.

By 1997, smart growth had become well favored in urban planning circles. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was funding advocacy groups and two major reports were released: the American Planning Association's Growing Smart Legislative Guidebook and the Natural Resources Defense Council's “Tool Kit for Smart Growth.” Later that year, the state of Maryland adopted the Smart Growth and Neighborhood Conservation Act, a model of state legislation encouraging changes in development practices.

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