What principles guide smart growth communities?

Smart growth is a management strategy designed to direct urban development while maintaining community vitality and quality of life. Often overlapping with New Urbanism, this approach seeks to foster economic growth while mitigating the costs associated with urban sprawl.1

The principles guiding smart growth communities include:1

• Increasing housing opportunities for all.
• Creating pedestrian-friendly environments.
• Encouraging citizen participation in decision-making.
• Developing unique, distinctive communities.
• Fostering opportunities favorable to the private sector.
• Integrating a variety of land-use types.
• Preserving open spaces, agricultural land, historic sites, and environmental resources.
• Increasing transportation choices, such as mass transit and bicycle infrastructure.
• Supporting development that includes existing neighborhoods.
• Designing compact, energy-efficient homes and businesses.

To implement these goals, officials may use tools like urban growth boundaries to contain development and encourage revitalization within city centers. While proponents emphasize sustainability and efficiency, critics argue that such policies may increase road congestion, raise private-sector operating costs, or negatively impact biodiversity through high-density development.1