2001 PB Solving Sprawl: Models of Smart Growth in Communities Across America

"Stopping sprawl is not just a utopian theory, it is an active practice - and the case studies presented here prove the point. Solving Sprawl is the best summary of the real choices we have to build better communities today." - Peter Calthorpe, architect and author, The Next American Metropoli.

The best hope for addressing the problem of sprawl is "smart growth" - an approach to development that is town-centered and transit- and pedestrian-oriented, and which mixes residential, commercial, and retail development. It also preserves open space and other environmental amenities.

Solving Sprawl shines a spotlight on American communities that are applying smart growth principles in successfully addressing the problem of sprawl. It offers examples that illustrate key concepts and tells the story of how this new approach to development has caught hold across America. It reports the good news that successful smart-growth developments can now be found throughout the country, with communities large and small implementing a wide array of innovative solutions.

The book details 35 diverse smart-growth stories from around the United States and celebrates those who are leading the way in solving sprawl - and local officials who have embraced new forms of development, corporations who are choosing to redevelop abandoned city properties rather than build new corporate campuses on undeveloped land, faith-based organizations that have been instrumental in redeveloping inner-city neighborhoods, visionary architects and planners who are showing how to design communities and regions that solve sprawl. Each chapter showcases a wide variety of solutions with projects of all sizes in urban, suburban, and exurban settings including Adidas Village in Portland, Oregon; the MCI Center in Washington, D.C.; Quality Hill in Kansas City, Kansas; Suisun City redevelopment in Suisun City, California; growth control initiatives in Boulder, Colorado; Pearl Lake in Almira Township, Michigan; and more. Interspersed throughout are sidebars that offer additional examples and reminders of the sprawl-related environmental and social problems that smart growth helps overcome. The book also includes a glossary of planning terms and land-use concepts.

Instead of obliterating our countryside while jeopardizing our financial reserves and weakening our social bonds, we are learning how to develop and grow in ways that better reflect our values. Solving Sprawl brings a renewed sense of hope and inspiration about smart growth and its potential for creating a more livable country.

F. Kaid Benfield is an environmental attorney and director of smart growth and transportation policy for the Natural Resources Defense Council in Washington, D.C. Jutka Terris is an urban planner based in Alexandria, Virginia. Nancy Vorsanger is a writer and editor who lives in New York City.