Smart Growth America envisions a country where no matter where you live, or who you are, you can enjoy living in a place that is healthy, prosperous, and resilient. We empower communities through technical assistance, advocacy, and thought leadership to realize our vision of livable places, healthy people, and shared prosperity.
Smart Growth America was founded with three staff members in 2000, and officially recognized as a 501(c)(3) organization in 2003. That year, Governor Parris Glendening joined the organization as the President of Smart Growth America’s Leadership Institute to help states and local governments use a smart growth approach. Smart Growth America continued to expand programmatically in these early days with the development of technical assistance workshops and a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts in mid-2005 to run the Governors’ Institute on Community Design.
Smart investments and common sense solutions
Smart Growth America advocates for people who want to live and work in great neighborhoods. We believe smart growth solutions support thriving businesses and jobs, provide more options for how people get around and make it more affordable to live near work and the grocery store. Our coalition works with communities to fight sprawl and save money. We are improving lives by improving communities.
Making communities work for everyone
At the heart of the American dream is the simple hope that each of us can choose to live in a neighborhood that’s beautiful, affordable, and in which it’s easy to get around. We want to create healthy communities with strong local businesses, schools and shops nearby, transportation options and jobs that pay well.
Smart growth strategies help make these dreams a reality. Smart growth is about creating local jobs and protecting the environment. It is about being able to safely walk to a park close by. It is about spending less time in traffic and more time doing what’s important to you.
Neighborhoods shape our lives. Where we live can influence our health, our economic potential, and our children’s futures. Everyone in America—no matter their age, ability, income, or race—deserves the option to live somewhere affordable, convenient, beautiful, and safe.
Smart growth means reinvesting in America’s downtowns and main streets, the economic engines of big cities and rural towns alike. Smart growth means creating homes for families of all income levels alongside one another in locations where daily needs are close by. Smart growth means diversifying our transportation system so Americans have a choice in how they get around. Smart growth means building streets that are safe for people walking, bicycling or using any sort of assistive device, as well as driving. Smart growth means protecting our open green spaces for generations to come.
Above all, it’s about helping every town and city become a more economically prosperous, socially equitable, and environmentally sustainable place to live, helping everyone flourish.
So what is smart growth?
Smart growth looks different from place to place—it’s an overall approach to development that encourages a mix of building types and uses, diverse housing and transportation options, development within existing neighborhoods, and robust community engagement. The 10 principles below, developed several decades ago but unpacked in this guide from US EPA, are considered the foundation of a smart growth approach—click on each principle to expand and learn more.
1. Mix land uses
2. Take advantage of compact design
3. Create a range of housing opportunities and choices
4. Create walkable neighborhoods
5. Foster distinctive, attractive communities with a strong sense of place
6. Preserve open space, farmland, natural beauty, and critical environmental areas
7. Direct development towards existing communities
8. Provide a variety of transportation choices
9. Make development decisions predictable, fair, and cost-effective
10. Encourage community and stakeholder collaboration in development decisions
Our biggest priorities
Smart Growth America currently focuses on three specific priorities: Climate change and resilience, advancing racial equity, and creating healthy communities. Click to learn more about each and how we are working to bring about measurable change:
Our work
Solving huge challenges like climate change, affordable housing, the need for vibrant local economies, or how to affordably connect people to jobs and services requires an interdisciplinary approach across a span of interrelated areas: housing, zoning, planning, land use, economic development, transportation, and others. Our diverse staff of experts, arranged across these three teams but working together closely, has the expertise required to tackle them all. (click any one to dive in.)
How we do it
At the core of our overall approach is empowering communities through direct technical assistance, powerful advocacy, and thought leadership to realize our vision of livable places, healthy people, and shared prosperity.
Smart Growth America
1350 Eye St NW Suite 425
Washington, DC 20005 (202) 207-3355
Smart Growth America, sustainable development, urban planning, community development, Leadership Institute, 501(c)(3), environmental policy, local government solutions
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Senior Editor, Digital Manager, Blogger, has been nominated for awards several times as Publisher and Author over the years. Has been with company for almost three years and is a current native St. Louisan.
