Title: What is smart growth? | Smart Growth America
Headings: What is smart growth?
What is smart growth?
1. Mix land uses
2. Take advantage of compact design
3. Create a range of housing opportunities and choices
4. Create walkable neighborhoods
5. Foster distinctive, attractive communities with a strong sense of place
6. Preserve open space, farmland, natural beauty, and critical environmental areas
7. Direct development towards existing communities
8. Provide a variety of transportation choices
9. Make development decisions predictable, fair, and cost effective
10. Encourage community and stakeholder collaboration in development decisions

Content: Foster distinctive, attractive communities with a strong sense of place
Unique, interesting places that reflect the diverse values, culture, and heritage of the people who live there have the greatest staying power. Projects and neighborhoods that incorporate natural features, historic structures, public art, and placemaking can help distinguish a place from its neighbors to attract new residents and visitors, and support a vibrant community for the people who already live there. 6. Preserve open space, farmland, natural beauty, and critical environmental areas
Preserving open spaces like prairie, wetlands, parks, and farms is both an environmental issue and economic issue. People across the country want access to natural recreation areas, which translates into demand for housing and tourism. Meeting that demand improves a city’s ability to attract employers, while also supporting agricultural industries. Preserving open spaces can also make communities more resilient, protecting them from natural disasters, combating air pollution, controling wind, providing erosion control, moderating temperatures, protecting water quality, and protecting animal and plant habitats. 7. Direct development towards existing communities
Developing within existing communities—rather than building on previously undeveloped land—makes the most of the investments we’ve already made in roads, bridges, water pipes, and other infrastructure, while strengthening local tax bases and protecting open space. Regulations, zoning, and other public policies sometimes make this approach unnecessarily difficult for developers, however.