Title: About us – MAPC
Headings: About MAPC
About us
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MAPC
About MAPC
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Smart Growth Principles
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Content: 6
Preserve open space, farmland, and critical environmental resources
Open space, both within and surrounding developed areas, enhances quality of life by providing community space, recreation opportunities, critical habitat for plants and wildlife, working lands for farming and forestry, and preserves the quality of critical environmental resources such as wetlands, watersheds, and drinking water supplies. 11
Create a range of housing opportunities and choices in cities and towns throughout the region
Promote diverse housing types in all communities to enable persons and households from a wide range of economic levels, cultures, and age groups to live and work within their boundaries. No single type of housing can serve the varied needs of today's diverse households. Smart growth represents an opportunity for 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 already served by infrastructure. 2
Integrate people and place
Smart growth must integrate people-focused strategies (efforts that support community residents and families) with place-focused strategies (those that support physical development and stabilize the community environment). This integrated approach is necessary to maximize community impact and to reduce unintended negative consequences to either the community or the environment. 7
Encourage development in currently developed areas to take advantage of existing community assets
Smart growth encourages development in areas where public investments have already been made in infrastructure, parks, schools, and other facilities, seeking to utilize these resources and to conserve open spaces and natural resources in undeveloped areas. In cities, this can mean focusing development on infill sites and abandoned brownfields; in towns, this can mean clustering development around town centers and transportation nodes. Recognizing that the extension of roadways, sewer lines, and other forms of infrastructure can often "drive" sprawl, government agencies should coordinate decisions about public investment in infrastructure in ways that prevent this unintended consequence and encourage smart growth.