Basics MSGC ~ What is Smart Growth?

WHAT IS SMART GROWTH?
To grow smart is to use land in a way that strengthens rather than weakens our economy, environment, and communities. Smart growth is conservative. By building compactly and protecting farmland and open space, we cut the need for taxpayer-funded infrastructure while we simultaneously protect water and air, make housing affordable, reduce traffic, revive and create beloved traditional neighborhoods, and sustain community bonds.

A great number of resources on smart growth are available online to activists. Here are just a few recent ones highlighting the breadth of smart growth, sprawl and growth management issues:

General
Getting to Smart Growth: 100 Policies for Implementation is the newest primer in the ongoing series from the Smart Growth Network and International City/County Management Association. The publication serves as a roadmap for states and communities that have recognized the need for smart growth, but are unclear on how to achieve it.

The American Planning Association's review, Planning for Smart Growth: 2002 State of the States finds that smart growth measures are most successful in states where planning statutes have been modernized and identifies a number of common elements that must be present if the states are to succeed in modernizing their comprehensive planning laws and implementing smart growth.

In Historic Neighborhood Schools in the Age of Sprawl: Why Johnny Can't Walk to School, the National Trust for Historic Preservation contends that public policies, including excessive acreage requirements, funding formulas and planning code exemptions, are promoting the spread of mega-school sprawl on outlying, undeveloped land at the expense of small, walkable, community-centered schools in older neighborhoods

Measuring Sprawl and Its Impact
According to this newly released study, metropolitan areas that sprawl more have higher traffic fatality rates, more traffic, and poorer air quality than less sprawling areas, according to a newly released study. The report is based on a three-year research project conducted by professors at Rutgers and Cornell universities. Unlike previous studies, which attempted to evaluate sprawl based on one or two statistics such as density, Measuring Sprawl uses 22 variables to rate metro areas on four different aspects of their development. The "scores" for each factor indicate how badly those regions have sprawled in terms of spreading out housing and population; segregating homes from the activities of daily life; lacking the focus of strong economic and social centers; and building poorly connected street networks. "For the first time we are able to define sprawl objectively so can see how it measures up," said Don Chen, Executive Director of Smart Growth America. "What this study tells us is that sprawl has a direct and negative impact on our everyday lives."

Smart Links: Turning Conservation Dollars into Smart Growth Opportunities
This new report released by the Environmental Law Institute links conservation funding with techniques to promote smarter growth and compatible development on nearby lands, as a means of promoting government effectiveness in conservation. It examines five states that have committed substantial amounts of open space funding in ways that encourage local governments to strengthen their control of development, or Smart Links.

Policy Guide on Smart Growth
The American Planning Association formally adopted this policy guide at the 2002 National Planning Conference. The guide offers a specific clarification of the much-debated definition of smart growth, as well as policy recommendations for smart growth planning and development. It also provides recommendations for planning structure, process and regulation; transportation and land use; regional management and fiscal efficiency; social equity and community building, and environmental protection and land conservation.

Agriculture
American Farmland Trust brings farmland loss and environmentally damaging farming practices to the attention of policymakers as well as the general public. The group's website provides an on-line Farmland Information Library, a newsletter, a searchable database of farmland protection statutes, and a series of publications and videos on farmland issues. Recent ATF reports are detailed below:

Farming on the Edge: Sprawling Development Threatens America's Best Farmland details the loss to sprawl of agricultural land in the United States. The study includes national and state maps of farmland in the path of development as well as a ranking of the top 20 states by acreage of prime farmland lost to development.

Town Meets Country: Farm-City Forums on Land and Community reports on the results of five meetings held around the country to explore land use issues facing urban and rural communities. The forums revealed that farmers and urbanites have a common enemy in land-wasting sprawl development.

Transportation
Surface Transportation Policy Project (STPP)
This public-interest coalition works toward transportation policies that emphasize people, not vehicles. Its website provides excellent information on transportation issues and policies and publishes a newsletter, Progress.

Victoria Transport Policy Institute
An independent research organization, VTPI is dedicated to developing innovative and practical tools for solving transportation problems. VTPI offers information on many aspects of sustainable transportation, including Transportation Demand Management, pedestrian issues, public transit, land-use planning, and other diverse forms of transportation.

Conservation Law Foundation: Transportation
This site is a resource for people working to create more livable communities by improving transportation. The site offers a listserv, as well as transportation articles, publications and reports, and links to other sites.

Community and Economic Development
Downtown Revitalization in Urban Neighborhoods is a report from the Northeast-Midwest Institute report that contains case studies of several redevelopment efforts, demonstrating one approach to smart growth. The Institute's website also contains a number of other reports relating to smart growth issues.

The Economic Value of Open Space
The author of this article from Land Lines, the newsletter of the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, argues that land use decisions ranging from the allocation of scarce conservation budgets to the property rights debate will be better informed if a more comprehensive understanding of the economic value of open space exists.