Smart Growth Principles

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Mix Land Uses

Take Advantage of Compact Building Design

Smart growth provides a means for communities to incorporate more-compact building design as an alternative to conventional, land-consumptive development. Compact building design suggests that communities be laid out in a way that preserves more open space, and that individual buildings make more efficient use of land and resources. For example, by encouraging buildings to grow vertically rather than horizontally, and by incorporating structured rather than surface parking, communities can reduce the footprint of new construction, and preserve more greenspace. This not only uses land efficiently, but it also protects more open land to absorb and filter rain water, reduce flooding and stormwater drainage needs, and lower the amount of pollution washing into our streams, rivers and lakes.

Compact building design is necessary to support wider transportation choices, and provides cost savings for localities. Communities seeking to encourage transit use to reduce air pollution and congestion recognize that minimum levels of density are required to make public transit networks viable. In addition, local governments find that, on a per-unit basis, it is cheaper to provide and maintain services like water, sewer, electricity, phone service and other utilities in more-compact neighborhoods than in dispersed communities.

Research has shown that well-designed, compact New Urbanist communities that include a variety of house sizes and types command a higher market value on a per-square-foot basis than do those in adjacent conventional suburban developments. Increasing numbers of developments are successfully integrating compact design into community building efforts. This is happening despite current zoning practices that discourage compact design – such as those that require minimum lot sizes, or prohibit multi-family or attached housing – and other barriers, such as negative perceptions of “higher density” development.

Examples:

More information from Smart Growth Network partners:

Coastal and Waterfront Smart Growth: Element 2

Land Use and Driving: The Role Compact Development Can Play in Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions

Create a Range of Housing Opportunities and Choices

Providing quality housing for people of all income levels is an integral component in any smart growth strategy. Housing is a critical part of the way communities grow, because it constitutes a significant share of new construction and development. More importantly, however, housing availability is also a key factor in determining households’ access to transportation, commuting patterns, access to services and education, and consumption of energy and other natural resources. By using smart growth approaches to create a wider range of housing choices, communities can mitigate the environmental costs of auto-dependent development, use their infrastructure resources more efficiently, ensure a better jobs-housing balance, and generate a strong foundation of support for neighborhood transit stops, commercial centers, and other services.

No single type of housing can serve the varied needs of today’s diverse households. Smart growth represents an opportunity for local communities to increase housing choice not only by modifying land-use patterns on newly developed land, but also by increasing housing supply in existing neighborhoods and on land served by existing infrastructure. Integrating single- and multi-family structures in new housing developments can support a more diverse population and allow more equitable distribution of households of all income levels. The addition of units – through attached housing, accessory units, or conversion to multi-family dwellings – to existing neighborhoods creates opportunities for communities to slowly increase density without radically changing the landscape.

Adding housing can be an economic stimulus for commercial centers that are vibrant during the work day, but suffer from a lack of foot traffic and consumers during evenings or weekends. Most importantly, providing a range of housing choices allows all households to find their niche in a smart growth community – whether it is a garden apartment, a rowhouse, or a traditional single-family home.

Examples:

More information from Smart Growth Network partners:

Energy Benefits of Urban Infill, Brownfields, and Sustainable Urban Redevelopment

Information from other sources:

Mixed-Income Housing Leads to Vibrant Neighborhoods

Create Walkable Neighborhoods

Walkable communities that are desirable places to live, work, learn, worship and play are a key component of smart growth. Their desirability comes from two factors. First, goods (such as housing, offices, and retail) and services (such as transportation, schools, libraries) are located within an easy and safe walk. Second, walkable communities make pedestrian activity possible, thus expanding transportation options, and creating a streetscape for a range of users – pedestrians, bicyclists, transit riders, and drivers. To foster walkability, communities must mix land uses and build compactly, as well as ensure safe and inviting pedestrian corridors.

Walkable communities are nothing new. Communities worldwide have created neighborhoods, communities, towns and cities based on pedestrian access. However, within the last fifty years public and private actions have often created obstacles to walkable communities. For example, regulation that prohibits mixed land uses results in longer trips and makes walking a less-viable option. This regulatory bias against mixed-use development is reinforced by private financing policies that consider mixed-use development riskier than single-use development. In addition, communities that are dispersed and largely auto-dependent employ street and development design practices that reduce pedestrian activity.

As the personal and societal benefits of pedestrian-friendly communities are realized – benefits that include lower transportation costs, greater social interaction, improved personal and environmental health, and expanded consumer choice – many are calling upon the public and private sectors to facilitate development of walkable places. Land use and community design play a pivotal role in encouraging pedestrian environments. By building places with multiple destinations within close proximity, where the streets and sidewalks balance multiple forms of transportation, communities have the basic framework for walkability.

Examples: