Smart Growth 101
Smart growth is a better way to build and maintain our towns and cities.
Smart growth means building urban, suburban and rural communities with housing and transportation choices near jobs, shops and schools. This approach supports local economies, protects the environment, and preserves farmland, forests, and open spaces.
Mixed land use
Mixed land use attracts pedestrians and helps revitalize community life by making streets, public spaces, and pedestrian-oriented retail become places where people meet.
Compact design
Compact building design suggests that communities be laid out in a way that preserves more open space, and that individual buildings optimize use of land and resources.
Housing choice
A wider range of housing opportunities and choices can generate a strong foundation of support for neighborhood transit stops, commercial centers, and other services.
Walkable neighborhoods
Walkable communities provide goods and services within an easy and safe walk, creating a streetscape for a range of users – pedestrians, bicyclists, transit riders, and drivers.
Appealing communities
Smart growth encourages communities to craft a vision and set standards for development that respect community values of architectural beauty and distinctiveness.
Land preservation
Land preservation bolsters local economies, preserves critical environmental areas, improves community quality of life, and guides new growth into existing communities.
Development revitalization
Development in existing communities strengthens tax revenues, increases access to jobs and services, optimizes use of land and infrastructure, preserves open land, and boosts rural communities.
Social equity
Equity in the planning process is essential to ensuring that all communities, including those traditionally excluded, have access to good communities, with clean environments, affordable housing, open space, accessible transportation, and good educational opportunities.
Transportation choice
To mitigate the effects of traffic congestion, communities are using a multi-modal approach to transportation along with supportive development patterns, to create a variety of transportation options.
Government leadership
State and local governments can provide smart growth leadership for the private sector by supporting development of innovative, walkable, and mixed-use projects.