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Background

The theory of Smart Growth seeks to make cities more livable through highly concentrated population nexuses, walkable open spaces, and public (especially rail) transit. All of those goals require intense micromanagement by central planning authorities.

The biggest dread of Smart Growth advocates is what they deride as "urban sprawl," city outskirts and suburbs filled with neighborhood after neighborhood of single-family homes with yards, plus the networks of roads, shopping centers, malls, and parks that all that requires. Sprawl uses land inefficiently, the theory goes, it doesn't foster attractive and unique communities, it doesn't preserve natural areas, and it requires too much driving and therefore isn’t good for the environment.

As Michael Sanera explained in his 2006 Regional Brief on "Planning Penalties in North Carolina,"

The hallmark of smart growth planning is to use governmental restrictions to force more and more families into high density housing, drastically reducing the availability of single family homes.

There are multiple ways to implement such planning, but the most widely used are urban-growth boundaries, requiring green-belts and minimum open space requirements, building design codes, historic preservation, limiting building permits, lengthy permitting processes, impact fees and inclusionary zoning. These planning policies reduce the supply of housing because builders are given less land to build on and have to go through a lengthier and costlier process to obtain permits. The demand for housing is still there, though, and with less housing available, housing prices are driven up artificially.

As with most political theories that hinge upon central planning to work, Smart Growth fails, and its failure is dear bought. It uses public resources exceedingly inefficiently, making housing more unaffordable, harming economic growth, and making it harder for people to move into the city. Higher population density brings with it greater traffic congestion and greater air pollution. Intrusive land-use policies, lengthy permitting, fussy building codes, impact fees, etc. dissuade new businesses. Higher home prices and cost of living tend to keep out the poor and minorities.

Furthermore, Smart Growth planning tilts at windmills. Nearly 80 percent of housing constructed in the 51 largest metropolitan areas in the country over the last decade was single-family, detached houses. What advocates dread is what the vast majority of people want.

Analysis

A people-friendly approach to land use and urban planning, Flex Growth starts with the economically sound idea that people know what they want better than government bureaucrats. Flex Growth is built on foundational economic principles to help city leaders navigate issues involved in rapid growth while still protecting property rights and individual choices. Flex Growth principles restore and reinforce property rights, allow for more efficient use of scarce transportation funds, let growth pay for itself, reform zoning, and avoid excessive government interference.

The entire 2014 City & County Issue Guide, is available for download as a 3.6MB Adobe Acrobat file.
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