Smart Growth: Necessary but Not Sufficient

by Jack Marshall, PhD, ASAP Update, November 2003

It's my understanding that some 30 years ago the concept of "smart" growth represented cutting edge thinking among community planners. Twenty years ago it was still innovative and provocative. And by about 10 years ago it had become conventional wisdom among most progressive planners.

So what is smart growth today? I'm going to argue that smart growth should be considered a valuable component of a larger, more comprehensive, and visionary view of growth management. By itself, though, smart growth is not enough. When done right, it offers short-term solutions to sprawl, but it simply does not guide us over the long haul toward sustainable communities.

The goals of smart growth are admirable, and, as Annie Faulkner observes, the benefits - actual and potential - are substantial:

Primary among [the benefits of smart growth] may be the improvement of human settlement patterns in ways that will foster a sense of community, reduce the need to drive, facilitate public transportation, and put farms, forests, and open space in reach of urban populations. By concentrating growth in already developed areas and slowing human expansion into natural areas, smart growth can help minimize additional ecological impacts as some growth continues.[1]

Let me also point out that the mechanisms ASAP advocates to control local growth, summarized in Eben Fodor's 1999 book Better Not Bigger,[2] are - without exception - nothing more that the mechanisms developed by the smart growth folks.

But Faulkner's reference to concentrating growth in already developed areas brings us to the shortcomings of smart growth.

Infill development in already developed areas will be limited, as Faulkner observes, "by people's tolerance for increased residential, commercial, and industrial density."[3] Charlottesville's efforts to increase the number of residents and businesses through infill is meeting stiff resistance from some existing residents who don't want to see remaining pockets of open green space disappear.

More importantly, even if people learn to accept higher density, there is a physical limit to how dense we can get - at least in two dimensions.[4] (The City of Charlottesville is talking about upward development since it cannot annex land for outward expansion). Keep in mind that for over 30 years Albemarle County has been growing at 2.1% or more each year - a rate that doubles in 33 years Whatever the rate - even if it were 1% or lower - continuous growth will, at some point, fill up designated growth areas and metastasize into open space.

The point is that the "smart" growth approach is shortsighted. If the world were to end in 10 or 20 years - as our County's comprehensive plan seems to assume - the "smart" growth strategy would be fine. Only so much damage can be done in two decades. But the world will probably not end in 20 years, and growth (unless we do something about it) will continue. Smart growth will not stop sprawl into open spaces or degradation of the environment - it can only delay it.

Some use the "smart growth" label cynically as a fig leaf to justify whatever development brings them profit. A Washington, DC-based legal group called "Defenders of Property Rights" is supporting a local proposal to build 28 large homes on land currently in Agricultural-Forestal Districts, a plan vigorously opposed by neighbors and the Piedmont Environmental Council. The Defenders of Property Rights website states that the proposal "truly is smarter growth for Albemarle County and the Commonwealth of Virginia."

Most advocates of smart growth, though, genuinely believe it is the answer to communities' growth problems. Indeed, the corporate culture of most local Planning Departments includes well-rooted beliefs about the inherent value of smart growth - and they hold these beliefs because they've been socialized by university Schools of Architecture and Planning that also maintain the credo of smart growth.

We've got to recognize some new truths. One is that the future doesn't end in 10 or 20 years. Community planning must be undertaken in the context of much longer horizons than the brief glimpse into the future that now characterizes our Comprehensive Plans. This doesn't mean we must struggle for accurate projections of Albemarle County's vehicular traffic 100 years from now. But we should recognize that, in all likelihood, there will be an Albemarle County 100 years from now, and whatever we do over the next 10 or 20 years will set the stage for the county in 100 years.

Another truth is that population growth cannot continue endlessly in any finite space, even in the 750 square miles of Albemarle County. Growth will stop - for one of three reasons:

We will run out of an essential resource. (In our area, it will probably be water.)

We will become so crowded and unattractive that no one wants to live here.

We will plan ahead and stop before we reach one of these other limitations.

Part of planning ahead involves asking currently unasked questions about an optimal population size for our communities. How large should we get? Or are we already past the optimal population level? How do we go about figuring what an optimal population size should be? How should we slow growth and, in equitable and constitutional ways, ultimately achieve population equilibrium? How can we ensure that the less advantaged can live in our community, with jobs and affordable housing? When should our growth curve reach a plateau?

It is only by ending growth that we can have genuinely sustainable communities. We delude ourselves if we believe there is such a thing as sustainable growth - even though few dare to question the goodness of growth.

Before I end, I want you to imagine a campaign for "smart smoking". This campaign, recognizing that smoking is bad for us and irritates many others, urges us to always go outdoors to light up. It teaches us to brush our teeth and rinse our mouths so we don't smell bad. It exhorts smokers to get lots of personal health insurance so the medical costs of smokers' cancer and emphysema aren't borne by taxpayers at public clinics. The campaign helps us purchase low-nicotine cigarettes, and it tells us where to get them cheap. But, remarkably, in this "smart smoking" campaign, the NO-smoking option doesn't even make it to the table. Doesn't that seem odd?

Then it should also seem odd that, in the "smart growth" movement, the NO-growth option doesn't even make it to the table. But we accept it. Few of our planners, politicians, or citizens have the courage to say that we cannot grow endlessly.

Smart growth, as it stands now, is essentially an accommodation to growth. By asking where and how growth should occur, it helps ensure that growth in the short term is done well. As such it is necessary, but it is simply not sufficient. Until a more comprehensive view of growth management is adopted - an approach that asks not only where and how growth should occur, but whether it should occur - "smart" growth may be lulling us into a false, and very dangerous, sense of security.

Jack Marshall, PhD, is the President of Advocates for a Sustainable Albemarle Population, located in Charlottesville, VA. ASAP is a non-profit corporation organized under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. Its mission is to increase knowledge and awareness about the effects of net population growth on our natural environment and quality of life, and to advocate appropriate policies and mechanisms that will enable our region to reach a sustainable population size.

[1] Annie Faulkner, "Solutions to Sprawl: The Limits of Smart Growth," Population Press 7, no. 1 (January/February 2001).

[2] Eben Fodor, Better Not Bigger, New Society Publishers, 1999.

[3] Faulkner, "Solutions to Sprawl."

[4] Ibid.

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