Increasing awareness about the problems brought on by urban sprawl has led to proactive measures to guide future development. Such efforts have largely been grouped under the term, Smart Growth. Although not widely recognized as such, the smart in Smart Growth implies an optimization of some quantity or objective while undertaking new forms of urban development. To illustrate a formal, quantitative framework for Smart Growth, this study develops definitions of optimal development from the perspectives of four different types of stakeholders: a government planner, a land developer, a hydrologist, and a conservationist subject to certain developmental constraints…We illustrate the differences in consequences on future development given these different objective functions in a stylized representation for Montgomery County, Maryland. Solutions to Smart Growth from the individual perspectives vary considerably.
Glenn Moglen, Steven Gabriel, and Jose Faria
Journal of The American Water Resources Association
June 8, 2007
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