Land Use Planning and the Consequences of Smart Growth

Abstract

Smart Growth is a current buzzword which implies that all growth is good if it is planned. But urban planning usually fails because it concentrates on each city as the center of its own universe, starting with a downtown and working out. This is unrealistic but common, really a misapplication of the concentric zone theory of the early industrial city to the modern world. The author began his career as a planner with the Pruitt-Igoe project in St. Lewis and uses that as one example of why planning failed then as it continues to do so today. (A video file is included).

Keywords

• smart growth
• urban planning
• sprawl
• urban growth