Often the initiatives have only a tenuous connection to governments, but several are official, from the one in Dallas where city council adopts a set of objectives each year that are produced by a nonprofit community organization, to the one in Maryland where the entire state is legislatively committed to Smart Growth. There are philanthopic foundations that are adjusting all their giving policies to help produce smart growth, so a request from, say, a museum, to build a new facility would be examined in relation to its effect on the growth of the community. The general principles that most often guide these efforts include increased focus on fast, clean, convenient, and reliable public transportation, to give people more choices, decrease time in cars, reduce pollution, and increase density around transit stops and lines. Increasing density makes inexpensive use of existing infrastructure like schools, roads, police, and water. Focus on the inner city and on existing communities also responds to the aging of the population, which is increasingly interested in safety, services, availability of better transportation, and the lower maintenance of life as found in the inner city.
Smart growth means being tough on industrial processes that pollute air, water, or land.
Although Santa Monica is a relatively small city, its progress toward sustainability has been rapid. In 1994 the city council adopted a sustainable program. The city closed a major street to cars, and that street has become a mall, filled with people day and night, shopping, talking, walking, and dining. Electric shuttles move people around the busiest parts of the city. The new dynamics of smart growth in Atlanta were a constant undercurrent at the Town Meeting.