To farmland owners it is a promise to halt urban encroachment. To some developers it is an opportunity for in-fill development within the boundaries of big cities. And to the Clinton administration, smart growth is an effort to build a more livable environment. Al Gore has even made smart growth his primary domestic promise for his presidential bid, dubbing it the new Livability Agenda for the 21st Century. Smart growth strengthens urban economies.
Smart growth protects the environment, including open space and farm land.
The most salient feature of smart growth, derived from environmentalists and New Urbanists, is halting suburban sprawl by clustering new developments in existing city neighborhoods. Pressures on elected officials, particularly by the Sierra Club and the American Farmland Trust, have led to endorsements of neighborhood oriented growth, or smart growth. The strongest argument of the smart growth proponents is that low-density sprawl is inefficient and is consuming far more of California s unique agricultural land than is necessary to accommodate the state s growing population. This argument is echoed in other states, particularly Maryland, Oregon, Washington, and Wyoming. To this end, the Los Angeles based Getty Museum recently hosted a Better Neighborhoods conference focusing on new school construction in Los Angeles.