of compact building design. Create a range of housing opportunities and choices. Create walkable neighborhoods. Foster distinctive, attractive communities with a strong sense of place. Preserve open space, farmland, natural beauty, and critical environmental areas. Strengthen and direct development towards existing communities. Provide a variety of transportation choices. Make development decisions predictable, fair, and cost effective. Encourage community and stakeholder collaboration in development decisions. History Transportation and community planners began to promote the idea of compact cities and communities and adopt many of the regulatory approaches associated with smart growth in the early 1970s. The cost and difficulty of acquiring land (particularly in historic and/or areas designated as conservancies) to build and widen highways caused some politicians to reconsider basing transportation planning on motor vehicles. The Congress for the New Urbanism, with architect Peter Calthorpe, promoted and popularized the idea of urban villages that relied on public transportation, bicycling, and walking instead of automobile use. Architect Andrés Duany promoted changing design codes to promote a sense of community, and to discourage driving. Colin Buchanan and Stephen Plowden helped to lead the debate in the United Kingdom. The Local Government Commission which presents the annual New Partners for Smart Growth conference adopted the original Ahwahnee Principles in 1991 which articulates many of the major principles now generally accepted as part of the smart growth movement such as transit oriented development, a focus on walking distance, greenbelts and wildlife corridors, and infill and redevelopment. The document was co-authored by several of the founders of the New Urbanist movement. The Local Government Commission has been co-sponsoring smart growth-related conferences since 1997. The New Partners for Smart Growth Conference started under that name circa 2002. Smart Growth America, an organization devoted to promoting smart growth in the United States, was founded in 2002. This organization leads an evolving coalition of national and regional organizations most of which predated its founding such as 1000 Friends of Oregon, founded in 1975, and the Congress for the New Urbanism, founded in 1993. The EPA launched its smart growth program in 1995. Rationale for smart growth Smart growth is an alternative to urban sprawl, traffic congestion, disconnected neighborhoods, and urban decay. Its principles challenge old assumptions in urban planning, such as the value of detached houses and automobile use. Environmental protection Environmentalists promote smart growth by advocating urban-growth boundaries, or Green belts, as they have been termed in