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Abstract
The national debate continues over the meaning of “smart growth” and its target, sprawl. Smart growth means many things to many people. The term encompasses a whole range of strategies and techniques to address what are perceived as the negative effects of sprawl, including traffic congestion, air pollution, and the cost of providing public services. It is a term that allows people to avoid appearing to support anything that might be labeled sprawl, while attaching a positive label to their particular solution or agenda for addressing it. For some, smart growth means slow growth, for others it means development that conforms to a “compact urban form,” and for some, it means no growth at all. If there is lack of consensus over the meaning of smart growth, it may be in part because there certainly is a lack of consensus over what sprawl is, its causes, and ideal patterns of development.