What’s all this talk about “smart” growth?
Or sensible growth? Or balanced growth? Or any of the other names for the new way of thinking about the metropolitan future?
Why have politicians as different as Gov. George Ryan, a Republican, and Vice President Al Gore, a Democrat, been talking about it? Why has the Illinois legislature commissioned a Growth Task Force and why has the governor designated a Balanced Growth Cabinet?
There must be something to it–because “it” already has enemies.
Right-wing think tanks have decided it’s a new form of state socialism. Libertarian columnists jaw that it’s more Big Government interference with the free marketplace. And the marketplace, don’t you know, is always free and always knows best.
In fact, the smart growth movement is none of the above.
Just what it is, though, is not easy to describe. That’s because it takes in so many aspects of our lives–so many of the forces that shape our communities–that discussion of it tends to get lost in techno-speak and pop sociology.
(Policy wonks refer to “the mobility advantages of transit-oriented development” when what they mean is it’s good to live near the train.)
So let’s simplify things. Let’s talk about the way we live now, here in the Chicago metropolitan region, and the way we want our children, and our children’s children, to live 50 or 100 years from now.
Do we want them to have the benefit of strong economic growth?
You bet we do. Growth is good. Growth has the power to put people to work and raise their standard of living.
But real economic growth–the kind that doesn’t rob Peter to pay Paul–is not fostered by the relentless, haphazard push of subdivisions and strip malls into the rural countryside.
Not when the net effect of that pattern is ever-longer commute times, higher taxes, dirtier air and, inevitably, emptied-out places left behind. That’s not growth. That’s a waste of time and money, a cause of lung disease and a formula for a permanent, jobless underclass.
Smart growth is not radical or coercive. It is a more realistic method of keeping score and planning accordingly.
Instead of leaping at every proposed shopping mall and subdivision that makes a pitch for annexation, a smart-growth town tries to weigh all the costs, long-term and short, against all the benefits.
A town seeking to grow smarter might use its zoning and annexation powers to encourage a developer to build taller and denser near a commuter train station. Or not to build at all on a remote wetland or oak savanna.
A still-rural county might adjust its sewer- or highway-building programs to promote growth in and near existing towns, easing the pressure on farmland and green space.
A smart state might change the way it funds public schools so the resources available to educate a child are not dictated by the value of real estate in that child’s school district. That alone would temper the annexation gold rush.
A nation seeking to grow smarter might shift the focus of its transportation spending from more beltways on the fringes of its metropolitan areas, to improved commuter rail and bus service. It might even pay for a bike path or two.
Some benefits of smarter growth won’t be measured in money saved or lower rates of asthma. What’s the value of time spent reading to the kids instead of fighting rush-hour traffic? What’s it worth to be able to walk, or bike, to a quiet place where one can catch a bluegill, see a blue heron or listen to the wind in the willows?
People get it, even if many of the pundits and public officials do not.
Monday, in Washington, an opinion poll will be released showing Americans overwhelmingly want smarter growth and less sprawl. But that much you could have guessed. New TV dramas and sit-coms are set in urban chic, not monotonous “Leave It To Beaver” tracts. Newspaper ads for new houses are more likely to trumpet proximity to a forest preserve than an outsized garage.
People want growth. But they also want quality of life.
The old ways of growth–paved over and spread out growth–have left Americans yearning for something better.
Call it smart growth, sensible growth, balanced growth. By any name, it’s an idea whose time has come.
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John McCarron is vice president for strategy and communication at the Metropolitan Planning Council. His column will appear monthly.
