We needed a new culture . . . Clearly you can have a strong, growing economy without sacrificing the environment and producing sprawl. In the process, we took our natural resources for granted as if they were somehow unlimited. As we grew, we simply paid too little attention to what happens to agricultural communities when farms are fragmented by development, or what happens to forests, and the wildlife that lives in them, when they are destroyed by roads or malls, or the loss of cultural soul from our communities as we moved farther and farther away from each other. We are finally realizing that the growth trends we all have experienced are not only bad for the environment and our existing communities, but also are costly to taxpayers, who must foot the bill for new roads, schools, and other infrastructure required to support far-flung new development.
People make bottom-line decisions.
In Maryland, therefore, we decided it must be our goal to change the bottom line. We simply opposed having the State subsidize the unplanned, or poorly planned growth that was eating up our countryside at an alarming rate. Additionally, we determined that we cannot look at just our rural areas, or just at our urban areas. We must focus on both sides of the equation. The cornerstone of our 1997 Smart Growth policy is the legislation that established Priority Funding Areas.