Smart growth is an urban planning and transportation theory that concentrates growth in compact walkable urban centers to avoid sprawl. It also advocates compact, transit-oriented, walkable, bicycle-friendly land use, including neighborhood schools, complete streets, and mixed-use development with a range of housing choices. The term "smart growth" is particularly used in North America. In Europe and particularly the UK, the terms "compact city", "urban densification" or "urban intensification" have often been used to describe similar concepts, which have influenced government planning policies in the UK, the Netherlands and several other European countries.
Smart growth values long-range, regional considerations of sustainability over a short-term focus. Its sustainable development goals are to achieve a unique sense of community and place; expand the range of transportation, employment, and housing choices; equitably distribute the costs and benefits of development; preserve and enhance natural and cultural resources; and promote public health.
Basic concept
Smart growth is a theory of land development that accepts that growth and development will continue to occur, and so seeks to direct that growth in an intentional, comprehensive way. Its proponents include urban planners, architects, developers, community activists, and historic preservationists. The term "smart growth" is an attempt to reframe the conversation from "growth" versus "no growth" (or NIMBY) to good/smart growth versus bad/dumb growth. Proponents seek to distinguish smart growth from urban sprawl, which they claim causes most of the problems that fuel opposition to urban growth, such as traffic congestion and environmental degradation. Smart growth principles are directed at developing sustainable communities that provide a greater range of transportation and housing choices and prioritize infill and redevelopment in existing communities rather than development of "greenfield" farmland or natural lands. Some of the fundamental aims for the benefits of residents and the communities are increasing family income and wealth, providing safe walking routes to schools, fostering livable, safe and healthy places, stimulating economic activity (both locally and regionally), and developing, preserving and investing in built and natural resources.
Smart growth "principles" describe the elements of community that are envisioned and smart growth "regulations" describe the various approaches to implementation, that is, how federal, state, and municipal governments choose to fulfill smart growth principles. Some of these regulatory approaches such as urban growth boundaries predate the use of the term "smart growth". One of the earliest efforts to establish smart growth forward as an explicit regulatory framework were put forth by the American Planning Association (APA). In 1997, the APA introduced a project called Growing Smart and published the "Growing Smart Legislative Guidebook: Model Statutes for Planning and the Management of Change." The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) defines smart growth as “a range of development and conservation strategies that help protect our health and natural environment and make our communities more attractive, economically stronger, and more socially diverse." Smart growth agenda is comprehensive and ambitious, however, its implementation is problematic as control of outward movement means limiting availability of single-family homes and reliance on the automobile, the mainstay of the traditional American lifestyle.
Smart growth is related to, or may be used in combination with, the following concepts: New Urbanism Growth management New community design Sustainable development Resource stewardship Land preservation Preventing urban sprawl Creating sense of place Development Best Practices Preservation development Sustainable transport Triple Bottom Line (TBL) accounting - people, planet, profit The Three Pillars - human, natural, and created capital
The smart growth approach to development is multifaceted and can encompass a variety of techniques. For example, in the state of Massachusetts smart growth is enacted by a combination of techniques including increasing housing density along transit nodes, conserving farm land, and mixing residential and commercial use areas. Perhaps the most descriptive term to characterize this concept is Traditional Neighborhood Development, which recognizes that smart growth and related concepts are not necessarily new, but are a response to car culture and sprawl. Many favor the term New Urbanism, which invokes a new, but traditional way of looking at urban planning.
There are a range of best practices associated with smart growth. These include supporting existing communities, redeveloping underutilized sites, enhancing economic competitiveness, providing more transportation choices, developing livability measures and tools, promoting equitable and affordable housing, providing a vision for sustainable growth, enhancing integrated planning and investment, aligning, coordinating, and leveraging government policies, redefining housing affordability and making the development process transparent.
Related, but somewhat different, are the overarching goals of smart growth, and they include: making the community more competitive for new businesses, providing alternative places to shop, work, and play, creating a better "Sense of Place," providing jobs for residents, increasing property values, improving quality of life, expanding the tax base, preserving open space, controlling growth, and improving safety.
Basic principles There are 10 accepted principles that define smart growth: Mix land uses. Take advantage of compact building design. Create a range of housing opportunities and choices. Create walkable neighborhoods. Foster distinctive, attractive communities with a strong sense of place. Preserve open space, farmland, natural beauty, and critical environmental areas. Strengthen and direct development towards existing communities. Provide a variety of transportation choices. Make development decisions predictable, fair, and cost effective. Encourage community and stakeholder collaboration in development decisions.
History Transportation and community planners began to promote the idea of compact cities and communities and adopt many of the regulatory approaches associated with smart growth in the early 1970s. The cost and difficulty of acquiring land (particularly in historic and/or areas designated as conservancies) to build and widen highways caused some politicians to reconsider basing transportation planning on motor vehicles.
The Congress for the New Urbanism, with architect Peter Calthorpe, promoted and popularized the idea of urban villages that relied on public transportation, bicycling, and walking instead of automobile use. Architect Andrés Duany promoted changing design codes to promote a sense of community, and to discourage driving. Colin Buchanan and Stephen Plowden helped to lead the debate in the United Kingdom.
The Local Government Commission which presents the annual New Partners for Smart Growth conference adopted the original Ahwahnee Principles in 1991 which articulates many of the major principles now generally accepted as part of the smart growth movement such as transit oriented development, a focus on walking distance, greenbelts and wildlife corridors, and infill and redevelopment. The document was co-authored by several of the founders of the New Urbanist movement. The Local Government Commission has been co-sponsoring smart growth-related conferences since 1997. The New Partners for Smart Growth Conference started under that name circa 2002.
Smart Growth America, an organization devoted to promoting smart growth in the United States, was founded in 2002. This organization leads an evolving coalition of national and regional organizations most of which predated its founding such as 1000 Friends of Oregon, founded in 1975, and the Congress for the New Urbanism, founded in 1993. The EPA launched its smart growth program in 1995.
Rationale for smart growth Smart growth is an alternative to urban sprawl, traffic congestion, disconnected neighborhoods, and urban decay. Its principles challenge old assumptions in urban planning, such as the value of detached houses and automobile use.
Environmental protection Environmentalists promote smart growth by advocating urban-growth boundaries, or Green belts, as they have been termed in England since the 1930s.
Public health Transit-oriented development can improve the quality of life and encourage a healthier, pedestrian-based lifestyle with less pollution. EPA suggests that smart growth can help reduce air pollution, improve water quality, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Reaction to existing subsidies Smart growth advocates claim that much of the urban sprawl of the 20th century was due to government subsidies for infrastructure that redistribute the true costs of sprawl. Examples include subsidies for highway building, fossil fuels, and electricity.
Electrical subsidies With electricity, there is a cost associated with extending and maintaining the service delivery system, as with water and sewage, but there also is a loss in the commodity being delivered. The farther from the generator, the more power is lost in distribution. According to the Department of Energy's (DOE) Energy Information Administration (EIA), 9 percent of energy is lost in transmission. Current average cost pricing, where customers pay the same price per unit of power regardless of the true cost of their service, subsidizes sprawl development. With electricity deregulation, some states now charge customers/developers fees for extending distribution to new locations rather than rolling such costs into utility rates.
New Jersey, for example, has implemented a plan that divides the state into five planning areas, some of which are designated for growth, while others are protected. The state is developing a series of incentives to coax local governments into changing zoning laws that will be compatible with the state plan. The New Jersey Board of Public Utilities recently proposed a revised rule that presents a tiered approach to utility financing. In areas not designated for growth, utilities and their ratepayers are forbidden to cover the costs of extending utility lines to new developments—and developers will be required to pay the full cost of public utility infrastructure. In designated growth areas that have local smart plans endorsed by the State Planning Commission, developers will be refunded the cost of extending utility lines to new developments at two times the rate of the revenue received by developers in smart growth areas that do not have approved plans.
Elements
Growth is "smart growth", to the extent that it includes the elements listed below.
Compact neighborhoods Compact, livable urban neighborhoods attract more people and business. Creating such neighborhoods is a critical element of reducing urban sprawl and protecting the climate. Such a tactic includes adopting redevelopment strategies and zoning policies that channel housing and job growth into urban centers and neighborhood business districts, to create compact, walkable, and bike- and transit-friendly hubs. This sometimes requires local governmental bodies to implement code changes that allow increased height and density downtown and regulations that not only eliminate minimum parking requirements for new development but establish a maximum number of allowed spaces. Other topics fall under this concept:
mixed-use development inclusion of affordable housing restrictions or limitations on suburban design forms (e.g., detached houses on individual lots, strip malls and surface parking lots) inclusion of parks and recreation areas