BUTLER/CUNNINGHAM

This page provides information on Smart Growth.

This site will change from time to time. Basic organization will remain constant.

click here to contact Mike Polioudakis, site developer

polioej@acesag.auburn.edu

LEVEL 3

2003 CONFERENCE

SMART GROWTH

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"Smart Growth" refers both to an attitude toward managed urban development and to a particular organization that promotes the attitude.

Cities all over the world, including many in the U.S., experienced very rapid growth over the last 100 years as general population grew and as people moved from the country to the city. Cities in different regions of the world grew in different ways. In many areas of the world, the growth was largely unguided and unregulated, leading to problems of: congestion, pollution, sanitation, affordable housing, roads, sewers, power, other infrastructure for services to people, education, ground traffic, air traffic, crime in general, drug crime in particular, law enforcement, recreation, parks and other "green" sites, sports programs, and infrastructure for manufacturing and business of all kinds.

Cities in the U.S. also had other problems that have roots in the American experience of (formerly) abundant land and in American preferences. Cities in the U.S. tend to "sprawl". If Americans can afford it, they prefer a large house with a significant yard around it. Until recently, Americans have preferred their own large houses-and-yards to public parks and other green areas. Americans are willing to drive long distances from such houses-and-yards to get to work, and Americans have not been much inclined to use public transportation if they could afford not to. Thus American cities often are ringed in multiple layers of current and past suburbs in various states of repair, cut by many strands of congested highways, with too few parks.

"Smart Growth" advocates these policies:

-As cities expand, they should buy rural land to reserve for parks and nature experiences, rather than simply allow this land to be developed privately.

-Unplanned private suburban style developments often actually cost cities more in services than they generate in taxes. Therefore, acquired rural land might actually save a city expenses that the city would otherwise incur for unplanned private suburban development. The aquired rural land can generate revenue such as with fees for recreational or sports use.

-Encourage people to live in smaller houses that are located closer together, in something like European style clusters. Americans now are more willing to do this because they have fewer children and because attitudes are changing. People are more willing to do this if they believe that public parks, recreation facilities, bike trails, and nature areas will definitely be available.

-Maintain signifcant parks or natural areas between housing clusters.

-Unlike traditional "sprawled" housing, small dense housing clusters can actually generate positive revenue for a city because such housing provides more land value in a smaller area, requires less services and infrastructure per resident, and sometimes requires less services and infrastructure per geographical area as well. If revenue surpluses can be sustained, they can actually result in lower land tax rates, reinforcing positive perceptions about such clustered residence patterns.

-Small, more dense housing with smaller lawns cuts down on problems of pesticide and other chemical run-offs.

-Reclaim land within the city for recreation and for nature.

-Encourage the use of public transportation. Subsidize it if necessary. Such subsidies actually might lead to a total net gain in revenue based on savings from other services (roads, electricity, water) that would otherwise have to be provided on a larger scale if the public transportation was not available.

-Encourage the development of local, non-polluting, non-congestive business such as restaurants, including manufacturing if it is suitable.

-Discourage strip malls and other land-expansive business.

-Make sure that recreational facilities protect watersheds.

These policies apply both to changes within a core urban area and to growth around a city. They might be particularly relevant to the issues of the "urban-rural interface" in Alabama in the future. Please refer to the Environment Facts page and the Environmental Institutions page through the menus above where the efforts of organizations in Alabama to impliment similar policies have been noted.

These policies have met with success but they have also been criticized. The following web sites present the policies and commentary on the policies:

The website for the Smart Growth Organization is as below. From the home page of that website, go to "Principles" and "Case Studies".

www.smartgrowth.org

The Trust for Public Land also supports planned development. They have written a report of the experiences of Austin, TX and a few other cities:

www.tpl.org

www.tpl.org/tier3_cld.cfm?content_item_id=1150&folder_id=727

Richard H. Carson has been a city planner for a long time at several locations in the Pacific Northwest. For "Planetizen" he wrote a brief critical review:

www.planetizen.com/oped/itemprint.php?id=78

The Cascade Policy is a Liberterian-oriented institute that reviews land policy in the Pacific Northwest. Their home page is:

www.cascadepolicy.org