What Is "Smart Growth?

In much the same way as we were able to find six major components that make up the umbrella smart growth term, we can move on to a decomposition of those dimensions into their programmatic elements. These elements show just how substantial the variation really is between organizations, even when they share an interest in housing, planning, or economic develop­ment policies. Table 2 summarizes some of the multiple dimensions of the six major components of smart growth derived from the national organizations' varying definitions.

1. Planning for smart growth encompasses six broad areas: comprehensive growth planning, mixed land use zoning, design and planning for increased residential density, design for street connectivity, innovation in water infrastructure provision, and enhancement of public service facilities, including recreational areas. Comprehensive planning is deemed to be "smart" in light of its utilization of existing infrastructure and its potential contributions to reducing automobile use and energy consumption; its inclusiveness and inherently regional logic and character; and integrating housing, economic development, and transportation elements. It is thus a key element in promoting sufficiently mixed land use, so that "residents provide a market and employees for businesses, and, in turn, businesses pro­vide desired amenities and employment opportunities for residents" (Hirschhorn and Souza 2001, 18). The social and economic interaction of residents and businesses in a neighborhood requires increasing density. Density, in turn, promotes more open space and natural land; offers economies of scale in public transit, schools, and emergency services; and decreases automobile dependency.

The design and construction of public infrastructure is also part of the planning process for smart growth, with street connectivity design to avoid dead ends, inte­grate new roads within the existing street network, and mini mize curb cuts, especially on arterials (National Wildlife Federation n.d.). The logic is as follows: "Gated communities, private road systems, and the introduc­tion of disconnected cul-de-sac systems promote dis­connections. Proper street connectivity, on the other hand, reduces miles traveled, increases non-motorized trips, and supports transit use" (APA 2002b, ill-B-7). Concerns over water infrastructure tend to initially arise from waste water problems. Increasingly, however, these concerns include assuring source water quality as well as wetlands protection, incorporatingthe need to protect the natural function of stream and wetland systems into all aspects of the planning pro­cess. Public service facility planning overall recognizes that such installations can enhance the viability of exist­ing communities and reduce outward migrations. Efforts to avoid subsidies to new development through facility provision include heightened need justification standards for public financing of new facilities and public-private cost sharing with developers.

2. "Transportation choice means providing residents with multiple, safe and connected options-driving, rail and bus transit, bicycling, walking-to get from one place to the other" rather than being automobile dependent (EPA n.d.a, emphasis added). Pursuing this objective involves "better coordinating between land use and transportation, increasing availability of high quality transit service. . . [and] . . . ensuring connectivity between pedestrian, bike, transit and road facilities" (SGN 2002, 62). The common goal across all smart growth efforts in this dimension is simply pursuit of reduced reliance on cars and, therefore, fewer miles traveled, lower road budgets, and less pollution.

3. Economic development, whether as a goal to be promoted or as a process to be managed, is arguably a central concern of planning efforts, smart or otherwise. In the smart growth context, development promotion efforts involve three threads: encouraging neighborhood business, infill development, and downtown redevelopment. Encouraging neighborhood business reflects, first, building communities in which people can live, work, shop and recreate and, second, revitalizing depressed neighborhoods by encouraging new ec­nomic activity, thus supporting continued use of available infrastructure. Infill development involves using vacant and abandoned spaces, both for housing and new nonlocal businesses, in order to avoid urban area spatial expansion while promoting economic growth. Downtown redevelopment policies involve efforts to change the status of city centers as destinations and development targets by promoting more housing (often purposefully mixed income), employment, and public amenities as attractions for residents and recreational activities.

4. Housing policies generally encompass offering more options in order to provide households of all income levels with the ability to live in a home that meets their needs. Smart growth housing policies tend to promote alternatives to the postwar standards of the stand-alone single family home in income-segregated areas. The smart growth housing orientation is intended to create" opportunities for communities to slowly increase density without radically changing the landscape" (SGN 2002, 18).

5. Community development as a concern represents an acknowledgment that people remaining in place create locally specific sociocultural values that need to be protected and enhanced in the face of change. Different communities have their own cultural, historical, and economic values. This uniqueness can be supported by efforts to build consensus in each community about how it wants to pursue smart growth. Policies under this category emphasize the specific community characteristics and historical values that will help maintain existing communities and the need for community participation in local planning efforts. The approaches tend to stress identifying diverse resources that different community groups possess and setting up a platform through which a range of organizations can participate in policy making and implementation.

6. Natural resource preservation may be at the heart of smart growth from a purely environmental perspective, with the resources in question covering animal habitat, farms, ranch land, wetlands, and other places of "natural beauty" and "critical environmental value." Major tools that are being widely used include strict land use and preservation regulations and "the use of market-based mechanisms such as donated conserva­tion easements, transfer of development rights (TDR), and purchase of development rights (PDR)" (SGN 2002, 44-45).

In essence, the smart growth definitions we have examined incorporate some or all of these six dimen­sions into an integrated policy or program. The real value of the concept of smart growth--if the term has any remaining utility--thus lies in the extent to which the policies, programs, and plans that are promulgated under that label manage to incorporate the conceptual depth of the definition in any practical sense, whatever the mix of emphases across the six major dimensions they may reflect.