Talk:Smart growth

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Removed part of the article:

Supportive of Agenda 21 agreements and the ecology movement's efforts to control sprawl, protect biodiversity and conserve natural habitats, the Smart Growth concept is perceived as a more media-friendly term than notions of sustainability which have perhaps a greater intellectual appeal. It cleverly appears to distance itself from mid 20th century notions of population control or "going back to nature" (which have anti-democratic and anti-capitalist connotations) and accepts that some "growth" is inevitable. It may thus expand its sphere of influence, even though some supporters presumably would prefer "no growth" or the emphatic reversal of many, largely acquisitive, trends perceived as detrimental to social and/or environmental conditions in industrialised democratic societies. It rather allows different supporters to choose what things grow in their personal visions of a better world. As an indication of societal hesitancy, many politicians and academics seem more prepared to argue for a reduced use of private cars than for reduced car (US: automobile) ownership or production. It is clearly less disruptive of the status quo in any society to argue for the cessation of a particular growth trend than to argue for its reversal, even over a long period.

One disadvantage of using the term "sustainable" to describe modes of behaviour or commerce that respect ecological understanding and environmental goals is that the same word is often used (especially by politicians and entrepreneurs) to mean sustainable in its traditional sense (i.e. capable of future continuity), or as a synonym for "economically viable". Thus a taxation initiative might be described as "sustainable" because the principle enjoys cross-party agreement or because it appears easy to administer, even though the new tax has no Green benefits and would not deter environmental damage or reduce the depletion of natural resources.

Recent additions need to be qualified and NPOVed. --maveric149

Perhaps we have been pounding on 24 a bit too much about NPOV. This EPA writeup seems to use "sustainable" with no sop to business or industry. Perhaps they abandoned the word because there really is a militant green faction somewhere making some inroads? Complex issues that is for sure: *http://216.239.35.100/search?q=cache:lkJBLf_66aEC:www.epa.gov/swerrims/RCRA-ch4.pdf+engineering+economics+discounting+tradeoff&hl=en&lr=lang_en

Well, back to engineering life cycle tradeoffs analysis where I was being confused when I found this, chow maveric,24.

How is this not NPOV? Qualifed how? New draft material below: Apparently useful links from google: http://www.un.org/esa/sustdev/agenda21.htm http://www.un.org/esa/sustdev/agenda21text.htm

Good grief! 2.3X10E6 more links .... this may take some serious research!

Perhaps we should rely on 24s first cut at NPOV and then tweakify it vs. attempting to write from scratch ourselves?

The Smart Growth campaign and concept grew out of Agenda 21 agreements and the ecology movement's efforts to control sprawl, protect biodiversity and conserve natural habitats. The Smart Growth concept was designed to be a more media-friendly term influential with viewers than notions of sustainability which have perhaps a greater intellectual appeal, at least among self appointed intellectuals with limited education or exposure to practical disciplines such as applied science, industry or engineering arts in construction and transporation sectors of macroeconomies. It cleverly attempts to distance itself from mid 20th century notions of population control or "going back to nature" (which have anti-democratic and anti-capitalist connotations) and acknowledges or accepts that some "growth" is inevitable.

I have attempted to make the language more accessible with descriptions, links and examples. Also have modified for NPOV. I didn't have the patience to address the timeline. I also moved the technical flag to the "talk" section for two reasons -- 1) it said it was misplaced, and 2) I hope I addressed some of the problem. This article continues to need a lot of work. Footnotes would probably be helpful -- I would imagine that the Congress of New Urbanism would be a good source to use in describing what smart growth is, according to its proponents. Because the term "smart growth" was clearly designed as a phrase of advocacy, it is especially important to maintain NPOV in this article. Some discussion of the development of the phrase and its use in advocacy should probably also be addressed more promienently. Thesmothete 23:32, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Change category name from New Urbanism to...

I have proposed changing the name of Category:New Urbanism. My best alternative is Sustainable urban planning or Sustainable urban design, which would then be broad enough to cover articles such as this one. But perhaps there is something more suitable.

See discussion at Category talk:New Urbanism. (Don't respond here) --Singkong2005 13:57, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Examples of Communities Implementing Smart Growth Principles

It's not clear to me how helpful this section is becoming, if we have simply an uncited list of cities asserted to be examples of Smart Growth. I would suggest that each listed city should have a cite and/or short explaination as to why it is included in order to stay. Thesmothete 14:43, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

It's clear to me that the section, as it stands, is close to useless. Either it needs to be expanded to supply context or the entire list should be removed. The inclusion of Columbus (which finished dead last in a recent sustainability ranking) should be enough to demonstrate that the current list is not working as intended. - EurekaLott 05:36, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

I've added a list of communities considered to have one or more smart growth principals applied enough to be fouced on by smartgrowth.org. I agree that the cities/communities could afford short explanations as what has been applied and elaborated, rather than just a list, but I disagree that the section is useless, if nothing more than just a starting reference. Shaunjason 16:39, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

I have removed the unsourced communities in the list. For a few of those referenced in the Smart Growth Network piece, I have listed their particular noteworthiness, but, frankly, most of them get a passing mention in a document that provides little context for understanding what these communities actually have done. There are clearly dozens, if not hundreds of communities that could list some claim to having done something related to smart growth, so let's limit this list to those for which we can document either major recognition of overall success or list the particular area of success along with a specific citation. Thesmothete 15:54, 16 October 2006 (UTC)