Myths About Smart Growth - (from www.npg.org)


"Smart growth destroys the environment. Dumb growth destroys the environment. Smart growth just destroys the environment with good taste."
          -Al Bartlett, Professor Emeritus of Physics at University of Colorado

Myth #1: “Smart growth” can slow or halt the negative effects of growth in an area.

Growth control efforts don’t actually control growth – they simply redirect it in the short term. If population continues to grow, even cities with strict growth controls find they continue to suffer from increased congestion, pollution, and reduced quality of life. Studies examining the effect of growth management efforts find that growth control initiatives have no effect on the rate of population growth in the control area; they simply shift the pattern of development. Communities that implement “ smart growth” do not experience a rise in community satisfaction – they continue to suffer overcrowding, high housing costs, traffic congestion, and high rates of resource use.

Myth #2: “Smart growth” preserves quality of life.

Rather than tackling quality of life problems at their source (increased population), “smart growth” programs try desperately to accommodate the problem, packing more and more people into more and more crowded areas. But many people prefer to live away from areas of concentrated development; they enjoy low densities, less congested roads, lower crime, and private yards. Polls consistently find that large majorities prefer not to live in large cities. The high-density housing necessitated by “ smart growth” simply doesn’t fit the type of housing that many people want.

Myth #3: “Smart growth” makes population growth environmentally sustainable.

If we don’t focus on population growth, pollution, waste, and demands for resources will continue to increase. More energy will be used, escalating problems like global warming, oil spills, and nuclear waste. In order to produce the greater and greater quantities of food needed by an expanding population, our lands are being deforested and overgrazed and our soil eroded.

Myth #4: “Smart growth” guards against increasing traffic congestion.

Since growth control efforts don’t address population growth, traffic congestion continues unabated. In fact, because densities are higher, travel times are slower. In Portland, where development is aggressively controlled, congested miles in peak period travel are expected to triple from 322 to 963 between 1994 and 2015, while hours wasted in traffic are expected to quadruple (from 10,052 to 42,821). “Smart growth” programs to encourage public transit ridership have not succeeded in significantly raising overall use of public transportation.

Myth #5: “Smart growth” eases the need for new infrastructure.

As population increases, existing police forces, roads, schools, waste management systems, libraries, and water services no longer satisfy the demands of the larger population. Communities with “smart growth” programs find they continually need to build more schools (or suffer from overcrowded classrooms), add sewer capacity, and find new sources of water (or implement water usage restrictions), and often must raise taxes to do so.

Myth #6: “Smart growth” can preserve land and open space.

When populations continue to expand, communities must find places to house, educate, and employ new residents and thus, even the best-intentioned “smart growth” efforts eventually run up against population pressures. (Witness Portland’s continual expanding of its growth boundary as its population increases.)

Myth #7: “Smart growth” helps ensure affordable housing.

When “smart growth” restricts the amount of land available to build on but population growth continues, demand and competition for housing increase, leading to sharp increases in land and home prices.

Myth #8: Population growth is inevitable; “smart growth” is the smart way to accommodate it.

At the very best, “smart growth” measures offer only short-term solutions to the negative effects of population growth. Instead, efforts should focus on the root cause of the problem: population growth itself. We can control and even reverse population growth. Smaller families, lower immigration levels, and a national population policy set in relation to our ability to feed, school, and house new people would allow us to stabilize our population at a size we can sustain without destroying our environment and quality of life.