Smart Growth and Sustainability

Today, I figured I'd take a break from technology and touch on the basics of Smart Growth policies, as well as their strengths and limitations. Planning communities wisely can have as much impact on carbon emissions as switching to clean energy sources, and its important that we all have education of how community planning can be beneficial to both the environment and the economy of a city or region.

A relatively recent design concept in community planning has had the potential to transform urban and suburban life from its current state into one that is more amenable to sustainable forms of living.  “Smart Growth” policies are those that encourage infill of existing developments, reuse and re-integration of urban brownfields, and increased emphasis on public transportation systems, with the goal of creating more tight-knit communities that are less of a burden on their surrounding environs.  While Smart Growth policies do mesh nicely with many facets of sustainability, certain issues preclude their full adoption in all communities, especially larger areas with more sprawl. 

 Smart Growth policies can help to advance the environmental goals of the sustainability movement.  The promotion of higher density development within urban areas reduces dependence on automobile usage, deceasing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and reducing their impact on global warming.  Higher density communities also mean that more land can be set aside to remain in its natural state and provide buffers for any pollutants or chemicals that might otherwise make it into the local waterways.  Additionally, trees and grasses act as carbon sinks, furthering GHG mitigation.  One of the more underrated facets of Smart Growth policies is their facilitation of communities suitable for mass transit usage: higher development levels mean that mass transit is more efficient at shuttling people to and from their preferred destinations.  This further reduces air pollution in the area, which clearly benefits the community. 

 Smart Growth policies also improve economic living in their targeted communities.  Smart Growth’s encouragement of higher development concentrates more businesses and shops in a smaller area.  These higher density developments increase the property values of neighborhoods adjacent to them:  the presence of shops near residential neighborhoods increases residents’ convenience, which can make properties closer to them more desirable.  The presence of more shops and businesses also means more jobs for local inhabitants, increasing their purchasing power and their ability to contribute to the local economy.  This can result in a positive feedback loop, as increased activity in the local economy can result in an increased migration of new businesses to the area, creating more jobs and further stimulating growth in the locality.  

 Smart Growth enhances the social well-being of the community as well.  More tightly-clustered communities means more walkable neighborhoods, improving people’s health as alternatives to automobile usage become more accessible.  Green spaces and nearby parks enhance the aesthetic appeal of the community and freshen the air in its vicinity.  Buildings that are more energy-efficient also lower the community’s energy bills, leaving them more money to spend on hobbies or other leisure pursuits.  Higher density communities also have the potential for more interaction opportunities among residents, leading to stronger bonds between community members, and potentially stronger civic organizations as well.

 The greatest obstacle to the implementation of Smart Growth policies in municipalities is arguably the size of the existing city in which lawmakers want to develop these policies.  Cities that are more compactly developed, like the cities within the U.S. Megalopolis, for example, present more opportunities for concentrating development than larger-sized, spread-out cities in the Midwest or West.  For example, many Eastern cities have older buildings that can be redeveloped or refurbished to comply with Smart Growth policies, and these buildings also come with the utilities already established.  It may be more difficult to concentrate building in areas that are already spread out, like the suburbs of Houston, for example, then to focus it on areas that already are developed, like inner city Philadelphia. Densely-packed urban areas have their own problems as well, like depressed tax bases or blighted communities with bad reputations, but what they do already possess is compactness.  This is worth noting:  the size and density of a city can improve the potential usage of mass transit, one of Smart Growth’s main pillars.  For example, the city of Los Angeles has a good subway system, but that system is hardly used by its inhabitants.  The reason for this is because of the city’s enormous size: there are so many places that are not reachable by using the system that the only way it benefits residents is if the place they want to go to (as well as the place they are departing from) is within one or two blocks of a subway stop.  Because the system is one-dimensional in this regard, it is used far more infrequently than systems in New York, Boston, or Washington, DC.

 In the end, Smart Growth offers a lot of promise to incorporating the theme of sustainability in urban settings, but policymakers need to recognize that there are limits to its effectiveness.  It is hard to break the pattern of suburban sprawl once that path has been in place for decades, and just as difficult to change urbanites’ habits after they have become accustomed to a particular lifestyle.  The problem is especially pronounced in cities that have developed around sprawl, as opposed to those that started out more compactly.  That does not mean that sustainability itself cannot work in those cities; on the contrary, cities like Los Angeles have taken the lead in LEED-certified buildings and alternative energy production (in fact, Los Angeles plans to install solar panels on every school in the city over the next few years).  But, Smart Growth policies will end up being most effective on cities with smaller, more compact structures, as its main pillars synchronize best when cities are denser and potentially less auto-centric.