Clearly the more land we're consuming, the more negative effect we're having on air and water quality. It's socially isolating. We're developing in ways where the poor and the working poor are concentrated in cities and older suburbs, while the new jobs, particularly the entry-level jobs, are located further and further away from the core. And I think it has enormously damaging effects on the sense of community in a metropolitan area as we become more spread out and more stratified by race, class, and income. So smart growth or metropolitanism or livable communities is about how we grow differently.
Smart growth is inherently a conservative philosophy.
It's basically saying you use what you have and invest where you've already invested.