AIArchitect, April 2001 - Smart Growth Debate Offers Many Tools for Combating Sprawl

This Week

Smart Growth Debate Offers Many Tools for Combating Sprawl

Community Elements Worth Saving

Before the debate about smart growth began in earnest, participants were asked to go around the table and name the elements of their communities most worth safeguarding. Mentioned most often were:

• Mature trees
• Open space; "borrowed" open space
• Good water quality; access to a lake
• My kids can walk to school
• Close to work and school
• Sense of community
• Intellectual social conscience of the community
• Civic environment: public trust and sense of community
• Diversity of people
• Respect for the human being
• Strong architectural identity
• Historical connections
• Rich history
• Historic district.

Among the items participants would most like to change about their communities:
• Add more connections to end the isolation of individual towns
• Upgrade the quality of the public school systems
• Bring residential to downtown urban areas.

Reference

The Urban Land Institute and the AIA hosted this roundtable. Participants in the roundtable included representatives of the International Council of Shopping Centers, National Association of Home Builders, National Association of Industrial and Office Properties, National Association of Realtors, Real Estate Roundtable, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, the Sierra Club, educators, and neighborhood groups.