Author: Robert D. Bullard
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262524708
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 429
Book Description
The smart growth movement aims to combat urban and suburban sprawl by promoting livable communities based on pedestrian scale, diverse populations, and mixed land use. But, as this book documents, smart growth has largely failed to address issues of social equity and environmental justice. Smart growth sometimes results in gentrification and displacement of low- and moderate-income families in existing neighborhoods, or transportation policies that isolate low-income populations. Growing Smarter is one of the few books to view smart growth from an environmental justice perspective, examining the effect of the built environment on access to economic opportunity and quality of life in American cities and metropolitan regions. The contributors to Growing Smarter—urban planners, sociologists, economists, educators, lawyers, health professionals, and environmentalists—all place equity at the center of their analyses of "place, space, and race." They consider such topics as the social and environmental effects of sprawl, the relationship between sprawl and concentrated poverty, and community-based regionalism that can link cities and suburbs. They examine specific cases that illustrate opportunities for integrating environmental justice concerns into smart growth efforts, including the dynamics of sprawl in a South Carolina county, the debate over the rebuilding of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, and transportation-related pollution in Northern Manhattan. Growing Smarter illuminates the growing racial and class divisions in metropolitan areas today—and suggests workable strategies to address them.
Growing Smarter
Author: Robert D. Bullard
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262524708
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 429
Book Description
The smart growth movement aims to combat urban and suburban sprawl by promoting livable communities based on pedestrian scale, diverse populations, and mixed land use. But, as this book documents, smart growth has largely failed to address issues of social equity and environmental justice. Smart growth sometimes results in gentrification and displacement of low- and moderate-income families in existing neighborhoods, or transportation policies that isolate low-income populations. Growing Smarter is one of the few books to view smart growth from an environmental justice perspective, examining the effect of the built environment on access to economic opportunity and quality of life in American cities and metropolitan regions. The contributors to Growing Smarter—urban planners, sociologists, economists, educators, lawyers, health professionals, and environmentalists—all place equity at the center of their analyses of "place, space, and race." They consider such topics as the social and environmental effects of sprawl, the relationship between sprawl and concentrated poverty, and community-based regionalism that can link cities and suburbs. They examine specific cases that illustrate opportunities for integrating environmental justice concerns into smart growth efforts, including the dynamics of sprawl in a South Carolina county, the debate over the rebuilding of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, and transportation-related pollution in Northern Manhattan. Growing Smarter illuminates the growing racial and class divisions in metropolitan areas today—and suggests workable strategies to address them.
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262524708
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 429
Book Description
The smart growth movement aims to combat urban and suburban sprawl by promoting livable communities based on pedestrian scale, diverse populations, and mixed land use. But, as this book documents, smart growth has largely failed to address issues of social equity and environmental justice. Smart growth sometimes results in gentrification and displacement of low- and moderate-income families in existing neighborhoods, or transportation policies that isolate low-income populations. Growing Smarter is one of the few books to view smart growth from an environmental justice perspective, examining the effect of the built environment on access to economic opportunity and quality of life in American cities and metropolitan regions. The contributors to Growing Smarter—urban planners, sociologists, economists, educators, lawyers, health professionals, and environmentalists—all place equity at the center of their analyses of "place, space, and race." They consider such topics as the social and environmental effects of sprawl, the relationship between sprawl and concentrated poverty, and community-based regionalism that can link cities and suburbs. They examine specific cases that illustrate opportunities for integrating environmental justice concerns into smart growth efforts, including the dynamics of sprawl in a South Carolina county, the debate over the rebuilding of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, and transportation-related pollution in Northern Manhattan. Growing Smarter illuminates the growing racial and class divisions in metropolitan areas today—and suggests workable strategies to address them.
Managing Growth in America's Communities
Author: Douglas R. Porter
Publisher: Island Press
ISBN: 1597266108
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 336
Book Description
In this thoroughly revised edition of Managing Growth in America’s Communities, readers will learn the principles that guide intelligent planning for communities of any size, grasp the major issues in successfully managing growth, and discover what has actually worked in practice (and where and why). This clearly written book details how American communities have grappled with the challenges of planning for growth and the ways in which they are adapting new ideas about urban design, green building, and conservation. It describes the policies and programs they have implemented, and includes examples from towns and cities throughout the U.S. Growth management is essential today, as communities seek to control the location, impact, character, and timing of development in order to balance environmental and economic needs and concerns. The author, who is one of the nation’s leading authorities on managing community growth, provides examples from dozens of communities across the country, as well as state and regional approaches. Brief profiles present overviews of specific problems addressed, techniques utilized, results achieved, and contact information for further research. Informative sidebars offer additional perspectives from experts in growth management, including Robert Lang, Arthur C. Nelson, Erik Meyers, and others. In particular, he considers issues of population growth, eminent domain, and the importance of design, especially green design. He also reports on the latest ideas in sustainable development, smart growth, neighborhood design, transit-oriented development, and green infrastructure planning. Like its predecessor, the second edition of Managing Growth in America’s Communities is essential reading for anyone who is interested in how communities can grow intelligently.
Publisher: Island Press
ISBN: 1597266108
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 336
Book Description
In this thoroughly revised edition of Managing Growth in America’s Communities, readers will learn the principles that guide intelligent planning for communities of any size, grasp the major issues in successfully managing growth, and discover what has actually worked in practice (and where and why). This clearly written book details how American communities have grappled with the challenges of planning for growth and the ways in which they are adapting new ideas about urban design, green building, and conservation. It describes the policies and programs they have implemented, and includes examples from towns and cities throughout the U.S. Growth management is essential today, as communities seek to control the location, impact, character, and timing of development in order to balance environmental and economic needs and concerns. The author, who is one of the nation’s leading authorities on managing community growth, provides examples from dozens of communities across the country, as well as state and regional approaches. Brief profiles present overviews of specific problems addressed, techniques utilized, results achieved, and contact information for further research. Informative sidebars offer additional perspectives from experts in growth management, including Robert Lang, Arthur C. Nelson, Erik Meyers, and others. In particular, he considers issues of population growth, eminent domain, and the importance of design, especially green design. He also reports on the latest ideas in sustainable development, smart growth, neighborhood design, transit-oriented development, and green infrastructure planning. Like its predecessor, the second edition of Managing Growth in America’s Communities is essential reading for anyone who is interested in how communities can grow intelligently.
Solving Sprawl
Author: Natural Resources Defense Council
Publisher: Island Press
ISBN: 9781559634328
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
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 –state 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.
Publisher: Island Press
ISBN: 9781559634328
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
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 –state 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.
Transit-Oriented Displacement or Community Dividends?
Author: Karen Chapple
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262039842
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 369
Book Description
An examination of the neighborhood transformation, gentrification, and displacement that accompany more compact development around transit. Cities and regions throughout the world are encouraging smarter growth patterns and expanding their transit systems to accommodate this growth, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and satisfy new demands for mobility and accessibility. Yet despite a burgeoning literature and various policy interventions in recent decades, we still understand little about what happens to neighborhoods and residents with the development of transit systems and the trend toward more compact cities. Research has failed to determine why some neighborhoods change both physically and socially while others do not, and how race and class shape change in the twenty-first-century context of growing inequality. Drawing on novel methodological approaches, this book sheds new light on the question of who benefits and who loses from more compact development around new transit stations. Building on data at multiple levels, it connects quantitative analysis on regional patterns with qualitative research through interviews, field observations, and photographic documentation in twelve different California neighborhoods. From the local to the regional to the global, Chapple and Loukaitou-Sideris examine the phenomena of neighborhood transformation, gentrification, and displacement not only through an empirical lens but also from theoretical and historical perspectives. Growing out of an in-depth research process that involved close collaboration with dozens of community groups, the book aims to respond to the needs of both advocates and policymakers for ideas that work in the trenches.
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262039842
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 369
Book Description
An examination of the neighborhood transformation, gentrification, and displacement that accompany more compact development around transit. Cities and regions throughout the world are encouraging smarter growth patterns and expanding their transit systems to accommodate this growth, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and satisfy new demands for mobility and accessibility. Yet despite a burgeoning literature and various policy interventions in recent decades, we still understand little about what happens to neighborhoods and residents with the development of transit systems and the trend toward more compact cities. Research has failed to determine why some neighborhoods change both physically and socially while others do not, and how race and class shape change in the twenty-first-century context of growing inequality. Drawing on novel methodological approaches, this book sheds new light on the question of who benefits and who loses from more compact development around new transit stations. Building on data at multiple levels, it connects quantitative analysis on regional patterns with qualitative research through interviews, field observations, and photographic documentation in twelve different California neighborhoods. From the local to the regional to the global, Chapple and Loukaitou-Sideris examine the phenomena of neighborhood transformation, gentrification, and displacement not only through an empirical lens but also from theoretical and historical perspectives. Growing out of an in-depth research process that involved close collaboration with dozens of community groups, the book aims to respond to the needs of both advocates and policymakers for ideas that work in the trenches.
Smart Growth Policies
Author: Gregory K. Ingram
Publisher: Lincoln Inst of Land Policy
ISBN: 9781558441903
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 277
Book Description
Publisher: Lincoln Inst of Land Policy
ISBN: 9781558441903
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 277
Book Description
The Smart Growth Manual
Author: Andres Duany
Publisher: McGraw Hill Professional
ISBN: 0071433449
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 240
Book Description
Everyone is calling for smart growth...but what exactly is it? In The Smart Growth Manual, two leading city planners provide a thorough answer. From the expanse of the metropolis to the detail of the window box, they address the pressing challenges of urban development with easy-to-follow advice and broad array of best practices. With their landmark book Suburban Nation, Andres Duany and Jeff Speck "set forth more clearly than anyone has done in our time the elements of good town planning" (The New Yorker). With this long-awaited companion volume, the authors have organized the latest contributions of new urbanism, green design, and healthy communities into a comprehensive handbook, fully illustrated with the built work of the nation's leading practitioners. "The Smart Growth Manual is an indispensable guide to city planning. This kind of progressive development is the only way to fully restore our economic strength and create new jobs, new industries, and a renewed ability to compete in the first rank of world economies." -- Gavin Newsom, Mayor of San Francisco "Authors Andres Duany, Jeff Speck, and Mike Lydon have created The Smart Growth Manual, a resource which not only explains the overarching ideals of smart growth, but a manual that takes the time to show smart growth principles at each geographic scale (region, neighborhood, street, building). I highly recommend [it] as a part of any community participant’s or urban planner’s desktop references." -- LocalPlan.org Planetizen Top 10 Books – 2010 On the ninth annual list of the ten best books in urban planning, design and development: "The goal of The Smart Growth Manual is clear from page 1: to create a guidebook for smart growth following the pattern of the Charter for New Urbanism. Duany, Speck and Lydon have achieved that in spades (the Charter is included in the appendix, in case we missed the connection). It even clears up some of the architectural arguments that attach themselves to New Urbanists, such as this segment of Section 14.1, Regional Design; 'While new buildings should not be compelled to mimic their historic predecessors, designers should pay attention to local practices regarding materials and colors, roof pitches, eave lengths, window-to-wall ratios, and the socially significant relationship of buildings to their site and the street; these have usually evolved in intelligent response to local conditions.' In addition to making the old 'traditional vs. modern' argument irrelevant, Duany, Speck and Lydon have truly managed to boil down the best parts of current practices into a highly readable, portable book."
Publisher: McGraw Hill Professional
ISBN: 0071433449
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 240
Book Description
Everyone is calling for smart growth...but what exactly is it? In The Smart Growth Manual, two leading city planners provide a thorough answer. From the expanse of the metropolis to the detail of the window box, they address the pressing challenges of urban development with easy-to-follow advice and broad array of best practices. With their landmark book Suburban Nation, Andres Duany and Jeff Speck "set forth more clearly than anyone has done in our time the elements of good town planning" (The New Yorker). With this long-awaited companion volume, the authors have organized the latest contributions of new urbanism, green design, and healthy communities into a comprehensive handbook, fully illustrated with the built work of the nation's leading practitioners. "The Smart Growth Manual is an indispensable guide to city planning. This kind of progressive development is the only way to fully restore our economic strength and create new jobs, new industries, and a renewed ability to compete in the first rank of world economies." -- Gavin Newsom, Mayor of San Francisco "Authors Andres Duany, Jeff Speck, and Mike Lydon have created The Smart Growth Manual, a resource which not only explains the overarching ideals of smart growth, but a manual that takes the time to show smart growth principles at each geographic scale (region, neighborhood, street, building). I highly recommend [it] as a part of any community participant’s or urban planner’s desktop references." -- LocalPlan.org Planetizen Top 10 Books – 2010 On the ninth annual list of the ten best books in urban planning, design and development: "The goal of The Smart Growth Manual is clear from page 1: to create a guidebook for smart growth following the pattern of the Charter for New Urbanism. Duany, Speck and Lydon have achieved that in spades (the Charter is included in the appendix, in case we missed the connection). It even clears up some of the architectural arguments that attach themselves to New Urbanists, such as this segment of Section 14.1, Regional Design; 'While new buildings should not be compelled to mimic their historic predecessors, designers should pay attention to local practices regarding materials and colors, roof pitches, eave lengths, window-to-wall ratios, and the socially significant relationship of buildings to their site and the street; these have usually evolved in intelligent response to local conditions.' In addition to making the old 'traditional vs. modern' argument irrelevant, Duany, Speck and Lydon have truly managed to boil down the best parts of current practices into a highly readable, portable book."
Smart Growth
Author: Jon Reeds
Publisher: Green Books
ISBN: 9780857840219
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 228
Book Description
People who live in compact, traditional towns have far smaller environmental footprints than those who live in sprawling suburbs. So why are we in thrall to urban sprawl? Are there better ways of getting about than by car? And how can 60 million people crammed into a small island find ways of treating it with respect? Urban sprawl is unsustainable in an age of climate change and peak oil. But for 100 years the UK’s planning policies have been based on ideals of low-density living and attitudes that favour the individual over community, creating car-dependent lifestyles and destroying the countryside we love. This book explains what we must do to improve the quality of life in our overcrowded land. Smart Growth argues that we should look to America – a country that embraced urban sprawl and car dependency on a far grander scale than we ever did, and is now finding answers to the problem. Its ‘Smart Growth’ movement is steering a course towards better-designed, compact cities and rail-based transit systems, thereby restoring communities ruined by decades of suburban insularity.
Publisher: Green Books
ISBN: 9780857840219
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 228
Book Description
People who live in compact, traditional towns have far smaller environmental footprints than those who live in sprawling suburbs. So why are we in thrall to urban sprawl? Are there better ways of getting about than by car? And how can 60 million people crammed into a small island find ways of treating it with respect? Urban sprawl is unsustainable in an age of climate change and peak oil. But for 100 years the UK’s planning policies have been based on ideals of low-density living and attitudes that favour the individual over community, creating car-dependent lifestyles and destroying the countryside we love. This book explains what we must do to improve the quality of life in our overcrowded land. Smart Growth argues that we should look to America – a country that embraced urban sprawl and car dependency on a far grander scale than we ever did, and is now finding answers to the problem. Its ‘Smart Growth’ movement is steering a course towards better-designed, compact cities and rail-based transit systems, thereby restoring communities ruined by decades of suburban insularity.
Smart Growth
Author: Whitney Johnson
Publisher: Harvard Business Press
ISBN: 1647821169
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 132
Book Description
A Wall Street Journal bestseller Named one of 10 Best New Management Books for 2022 by Thinkers50 Creating a culture of learning and growth. Growth is the goal. Helping people develop their potential—enabling them to articulate and become the self they want to be, are capable of being, and that best serves them and others in the short and long term—is what we as individuals and leaders strive toward. But how do we grow? It turns out it happens in a predictable way, which means we can understand where we are in our growth and chart a way forward. In this compact, complete guide, Whitney Johnson dives more deeply than ever into the S Curve of Learning so that you can envision how growth happens and direct yourself and others in your organization to create a culture that fosters it. The growth and learning journey comes in three phases: the Launch Point, the Sweet Spot, and Mastery. Compelling examples of successful people will show you when and why growth is slow, how to keep going, what to do when growth and learning are almost too fast to keep up with, and how to leap from one growth journey to another. As individuals grow, so do organizations and societies. Growth is learning put into action—action that betters the world as we better ourselves and our small niches, both personal and professional, within it. Growth occurs when learning is internalized—when we try something new and invest the effort to move it from being something we do to something we are.
Publisher: Harvard Business Press
ISBN: 1647821169
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 132
Book Description
A Wall Street Journal bestseller Named one of 10 Best New Management Books for 2022 by Thinkers50 Creating a culture of learning and growth. Growth is the goal. Helping people develop their potential—enabling them to articulate and become the self they want to be, are capable of being, and that best serves them and others in the short and long term—is what we as individuals and leaders strive toward. But how do we grow? It turns out it happens in a predictable way, which means we can understand where we are in our growth and chart a way forward. In this compact, complete guide, Whitney Johnson dives more deeply than ever into the S Curve of Learning so that you can envision how growth happens and direct yourself and others in your organization to create a culture that fosters it. The growth and learning journey comes in three phases: the Launch Point, the Sweet Spot, and Mastery. Compelling examples of successful people will show you when and why growth is slow, how to keep going, what to do when growth and learning are almost too fast to keep up with, and how to leap from one growth journey to another. As individuals grow, so do organizations and societies. Growth is learning put into action—action that betters the world as we better ourselves and our small niches, both personal and professional, within it. Growth occurs when learning is internalized—when we try something new and invest the effort to move it from being something we do to something we are.
Seven Rules for Sustainable Communities
Author: Patrick M. Condon
Publisher: Island Press
ISBN: 1597268208
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 215
Book Description
Questions of how the design of cities can respond to the challenge of climate change dominate the thoughts of urban planners and designers across the U.S. and Canada. With admirable clarity, Patrick Condon responds to these questions. He addresses transportation, housing equity, job distribution, economic development, and ecological systems issues and synthesizes his knowledge and research into a simple-to-understand set of urban design recommendations. No other book so clearly connects the form of our cities to their ecological, economic, and social consequences. No other book takes on this breadth of complex and contentious issues and distills them down to such convincing and practical solutions.
Publisher: Island Press
ISBN: 1597268208
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 215
Book Description
Questions of how the design of cities can respond to the challenge of climate change dominate the thoughts of urban planners and designers across the U.S. and Canada. With admirable clarity, Patrick Condon responds to these questions. He addresses transportation, housing equity, job distribution, economic development, and ecological systems issues and synthesizes his knowledge and research into a simple-to-understand set of urban design recommendations. No other book so clearly connects the form of our cities to their ecological, economic, and social consequences. No other book takes on this breadth of complex and contentious issues and distills them down to such convincing and practical solutions.
Smarter Growth
Author: John H. Spiers
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 0812295137
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 257
Book Description
Suburban sprawl has been the prevailing feature—and double-edged sword—of metropolitan America's growth and development since 1945. The construction of homes, businesses, and highways that were signs of the nation's economic prosperity also eroded the presence of agriculture and polluted the environment. This in turn provoked fierce activism from an array of local, state, and national environmental groups seeking to influence planning and policy. Many places can lay claim to these twin legacies of sprawl and the attendant efforts to curb its impact, but, according to John H. Spiers, metropolitan Washington, D.C., in particular, laid the foundations for a smart growth movement that blossomed in the late twentieth century. In Smarter Growth, Spiers argues that civic and social activists played a key role in pushing state and local officials to address the environmental and fiscal costs of growth. Drawing on case studies including the Potomac River's cleanup, local development projects, and agricultural preservation, he identifies two periods of heightened environmental consciousness in the early to mid-1970s and the late 1990s that resulted in stronger development regulations and land preservation across much of metropolitan Washington. Smarter Growth offers a fresh understanding of environmental politics in metropolitan America, giving careful attention to the differences between rural, suburban, and urban communities and demonstrating how public officials and their constituents engaged in an ongoing dialogue that positioned environmental protection as an increasingly important facet of metropolitan development over the past four decades. It reveals that federal policies were only one part of a larger decision-making process—and not always for the benefit of the environment. Finally, it underscores the continued importance of grassroots activists for pursuing growth that is environmentally, fiscally, and socially equitable—in a word, smarter.
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 0812295137
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 257
Book Description
Suburban sprawl has been the prevailing feature—and double-edged sword—of metropolitan America's growth and development since 1945. The construction of homes, businesses, and highways that were signs of the nation's economic prosperity also eroded the presence of agriculture and polluted the environment. This in turn provoked fierce activism from an array of local, state, and national environmental groups seeking to influence planning and policy. Many places can lay claim to these twin legacies of sprawl and the attendant efforts to curb its impact, but, according to John H. Spiers, metropolitan Washington, D.C., in particular, laid the foundations for a smart growth movement that blossomed in the late twentieth century. In Smarter Growth, Spiers argues that civic and social activists played a key role in pushing state and local officials to address the environmental and fiscal costs of growth. Drawing on case studies including the Potomac River's cleanup, local development projects, and agricultural preservation, he identifies two periods of heightened environmental consciousness in the early to mid-1970s and the late 1990s that resulted in stronger development regulations and land preservation across much of metropolitan Washington. Smarter Growth offers a fresh understanding of environmental politics in metropolitan America, giving careful attention to the differences between rural, suburban, and urban communities and demonstrating how public officials and their constituents engaged in an ongoing dialogue that positioned environmental protection as an increasingly important facet of metropolitan development over the past four decades. It reveals that federal policies were only one part of a larger decision-making process—and not always for the benefit of the environment. Finally, it underscores the continued importance of grassroots activists for pursuing growth that is environmentally, fiscally, and socially equitable—in a word, smarter.