Smart Growth

What is Smart Growth?

Smart Growth is a planning approach that recognizes the impact transportation investments have on land use and community form. It encourages the revitalization of existing urban centers and older communities, rather than the development of open space and farmland into suburban sprawl. Smart growth counteracts single-use zoning and the separation of residential and commercial centers, and an automobile-dependent lifestyle. Smart growth focuses on human-scale street-level urbanism, interconnected streets, and walking and mass transit. Smart growth is also a fiscally responsible development pattern - with lower costs for individual units, public utilities, and transportation. It is environmentally sound, by encouraging brownfield development, preserving open space by concentrating development, and reducing emissions by promoting mass transit and walkability. It can also be a socially conscious strategy, calling for a diversity of housing types, and encouraging inclusionary zoning.

Smart Growth at DVRPC

Revitalization and Livability:

Transit-Oriented Development:

Multi-Municipal Planning:

Traffic Calming and Context-Sensitive Solutions:

Municipal Implementation Tools:

Implementing Connections: A Guide for Municipalities is an introductory brochure that briefly describes numerous planning tools that municipalities can use to better plan their futures and implement Connections: the Regional Plan for a Sustainable Future, the Greater Philadelphia region's long-range plan. The Municipal Implementation Tool brochure series contains several brochures that describe some of these implementation tools and techniques in greater detail.

Smart Growth

What is Smart Growth?

Smart Growth Principles

Who Promotes Smart Growth Nationally?

Municipal Outreach Program