Poll finds strong popular support for smart growth

A new advocacy coalition, Smart Growth America, releases report on Americans’ changing attitudes toward sprawl. Americans are ready for new approaches to managing growth in their communities, the new poll suggests. Seventy-eight percent of respondents agreed that land-use planning should guide the placement and size of development, and the same percentage said they would favor smart growth policies in their state.

Smart growth was defined as “giving priority to improving services, such as schools, roads, affordable housing, and public transportation in existing communities, rather than encouraging new housing and commercial development and new highways in the countryside. Smart Growth America Director Don Chen says the coalition expected significant support for these general policies, but was surprised by the response to questions on affordable housing and transportation.

A majority of 66 percent supported policies that would require all new residential developments to have 15 percent housing for moderate and low-income families. Asked if they would favor their state government to spend more on public transportation, even if it means less money for new highways, 60 percent of respondents said yes. More thoughtful approaches

“People have realized that our efforts to manage traffic congestion through road construction have failed terribly, and they are willing to try new and more thoughtful approaches,” Chen says. Given a choice between three solutions for reducing traffic, 47 percent cited improving public transportation as the best long-term solution, followed by 28 percent who chose developing new communities where people do not have to drive long distances to work or shop.

Twenty-one percent picked building new roads as the best solution. The poll is based on responses from 1,007 adults and has a margin of error of ± 3.1 percentage points. While the poll shows support for smart growth policies, it also raises the big underlying question: will this level of support hold up when Americans are faced with compact development or low-income housing in their own neighborhoods?

Chen acknowledges that the devil is in the details, but maintains that other trends cited by Smart Growth America indicate that people are serious about their support for a change in policy. The group’s report notes that, in the 1998 elections, voters nationwide considered 240 ballot initiatives on open space protection and other smart growth policies and 72 percent of those passed. Use of public transportation is greater than it has been since 1960 and is growing faster than driving.

New urbanist communities are proliferating, and the annual barometer of real estate, Emerging Trends in Real Estate, increasingly advises investors to put money in urban mixed-use projects rather than in suburban office parks and malls. “We think that Americans are expressing a desire to have more choices in where to live and how to get around,” Chen says. Smart Growth America was formed to promote that message more aggressively to both public officials and the general public.

Many of the partners in the coalition are already members of the Smart Growth Network, but Chen says that group has served a mainly educational function and that the time has come for a more active advocacy for smart growth. Among the Smart Growth America members are: the Congress for the New Urbanism; the Surface Transportation Policy Project; the Natural Resources Defense Council; the National Trust for Historic Preservation; the American Planning Association; the Sierra Club; and the Enterprise Foundation. The poll and report are available at www.smartgrowth america.com.