University at Buffalo - The State University of New York

Published: March 20, 2003

By PATRICIA DONOVAN
Contributing Editor

Across the nation, there is increasing concern that our communities are growing the wrong way—the "dumb" way. As green space disappears and our farmlands are eaten up with sprawling residential and commercial developments that lack beauty or sense of place, our cities and older suburbs are being depleted of population and their growth stilled.

"Smart growth" is the national buzzword for principles of regional growth and planning that arose in response to the consequences of urban sprawl. As Buffalo and Erie County begin debating regionalization, the principles of smart growth must be considered if we want to make our many communities healthier, more pleasant places to live.

Smart growth is a wildly popular concept among groups as disparate as real estate developers and environmentalists, but as the phrase slips into popular usage, urban planners say its meaning is becoming increasingly unclear. This, they say, is because special interests sometimes attempt to promote their own, often completely self-interested, goals by feigning an interest in smart growth.

Gerrit J. Knaap

Distinguished urban and regional planner Gerrit J. Knaap, one of the nation's experts on the topic, will clarify the meaning and application in this region of the concept of smart growth when he visits Buffalo next month as the 2003 Clarkson Chair in Urban and Regional Planning in the School of Architecture and Planning.

Knaap will spend the week of March 31-April 4 at the school, where he will participate in a research colloquium, several student seminars, a faculty research roundtable discussion and three public discussions—all on the subject of smart growth.

Additional events are scheduled to introduce Knapp and smart growth to as many interested community members, business people and elected officials as possible. The events are:

• April 2: "The Sprawl/Smart Growth Debate: Initiating a Dialogue Between Research and Practice," an invitational breakfast discussion to be held from 8:30-10:30 a.m. at the Buffalo-Niagara Partnership, 665 Main St., Buffalo.

• April 3: "Moving 'Smart Growth' Beyond Ideology: Toward a Scientific Foundation for Urban Design," the School of Architecture and Planning's Clarkson Visiting Chair Lecture, scheduled for 5:30 p.m. in 301 Crosby Hall, South Campus. Free of charge and open to the public.

• April 4: "No Growth/Slow Growth/Sprawl," a panel discussion moderated by John B. Sheffer II, director of the Institute for Local Governance and Regional Growth, 5:30 p.m., Rockwell Hall, Buffalo State College. Several noted urban planners and political figures will address the question of whether or not Western New York can grow "smart." Free of charge and open to the public.

This panel discussion will open the traveling exhibition "Smart Growth and Choices for Change" at the Burchfield-Penney Art Center in Rockwell Hall. The show summarizes a three-year, four-part exhibition series at the National Building Museum that examined the history and consequences of sprawl and smart growth as an alternative approach to development, and looks at projects designed and accomplished according to its principles.

Knaap is a professor of urban studies and planning and the director of the National Center for Smart Growth Research and Education at the University of Maryland, whose more than $40 million in research dollars comes from a number of federal, state and local agencies, including the National Science Foundation. He is also faculty associate in the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy in Cambridge, Mass.

The author or editor of several books, including "Land Market Monitoring for Smart Urban Growth," he has written nine book chapters and numerous articles that have been widely published in major journals in urban planning, economics, policy analysis and land management. In 1998, he received the Best of ACSP Award from the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning.

Smart growth roughly translates into the planned results of statutes related to urban land use, patterns of economic and social development. It suggests limiting sprawl in order to shorten commuting times, relieve traffic congestion, limit the need for new infrastructure, preserve green space and make urban metropolitan areas livable.

Samina Raja, assistant professor of urban and regional planning at UB, has undertaken a study of smart growth development in the U.S. and says the term's meaning is vague to most, which is both an advantage and a disadvantage.

"Historically, smart growth is a response to the loss of environmental resources that accompanies aggressive real estate development. That's how the Sierra Club became involved early on in promoting it—to preserve open space," says Raja.

There are several principles of smart growth that Knaap will certainly address," she says, "and perhaps he will help us to understand why adherence to all of those principles—not just a few—is necessary if we are to accomplish our goals in this area.

"Smart growth calls for the creation of a range of housing opportunities and choices in a community; walkable neighborhoods; the growth of distinctive, attractive places with a strong sense of place.

"It requires community-stakeholder collaboration; predictable, fair and cost-effective development decisions, as well as mixed land use, the preservation of open space and farmlands, natural beauty and critical environmental areas like watersheds." she says.

"The principles of smart growth also call for a variety of transportation choices; the promotion of development in existing communities; compact building design and consideration of the quality of the community life we develop," she says.

Smart growth can evolve in a number of ways, Raja says, but it always is the outcome of discussion and ultimate agreement among all the stakeholders—homeowners, small and large businesses, school districts, environmentalists, real estate developers—everyone who lives, works or owns property in a specific area.

"Smart growth has worked very well in states as different as Wisconsin and Oregon. Other states and communities are investigating how they might apply it. It is a very complex subject and sometimes has provoked contentious debate among those involved," says Raja, "but it can work extremely well in many different circumstances."

"Gerrit Knaap moves the conversation away from rhetoric and the promotion special interests to the exclusion of others. He would say—and I agree—that all of us need to recognize the effect sprawl has on our lives.

"The notion of smart growth has great value for this region. Buffalo wants to grow, Amherst wants to maintain a good quality of life, Cheektowaga wants to retain its current population—every community can address its current and future needs if they include all of their stakeholders, consider what they want to save, develop and limit and then plan accordingly," Raja says.

The Clarkson Visiting Chair is a visiting position endowed by Will and Nan Clarkson and awarded semi-annually to a distinguished scholar or professional in the disciplines of architecture, planning, and design. The award recognizes excellence in pursuit of scholarship and professional application within these disciplines.