At its core, Smart Growth seeks to create quality places to live, work and recreate.  It does so by seeking a return to the way communities were once built, with the walkability, safety and convenience that flow naturally from common sense planning decisions.  The tenets of Smart Growth include the following:

        (1)   Mix land uses (residential, commercial, retail);

(2)   Maximize use of existing assets;

(3)   Create a range of housing opportunities for different lifestyles and income levels;

(4)   Create walkable neighborhoods;

(5)   Promote, distinctive, attractive communities with a strong sense of “place”;

(6)   Preserve open space, farmland, natural beauty and critical environmental areas;

(7)   Strengthen and encourage growth in existing communities;

(8)   Provide a variety of transportation choices;

(9)   Make development decisions predictable, fair and cost effective; and

(10)   Encourage citizen and stakeholder participation in development decisions.

                   In short, Smart Growth seeks to provide residents with options for working, shopping, dining, recreating and living that make efficient use of existing and/or limited assets, and does so in a way that is pleasing to mankind’s innate desire for community and fellowship.

                   This year’s Summit included an address by U.S. Senator Mary Landrieu, as great a proponent of Smart Growth as exists in the Congress.  Senator Landrieu has correctly identified the important link between Smart Growth and the rebuilding of the Gulf Coast: we can be efficient in utilizing our limited resources, and can rebuild better, safer, and more livable than we were.  In this regard, the Summit included a fascinating presentation titled “Going Dutch.”  This session was co-presented by Dale T. Morris, Senior Economist with the Dutch Embassy in Washington, D.C., and David Waggoner, AIA, of New Orleans.  We’ve all heard a great deal about the ways in which the Dutch keep their country safe from the North Sea, and Senator Landrieu has been a tireless proponent of learning from the Dutch example.  This presentation dealt with water at a much more fundamental level, that of living with water as an integrated part of our everyday lives.

                   How often have we bemoaned the fact that New Orleans has taken slight advantage of the natural beauty of its waterfronts?  Residential developments with sightlines to the Mississippi River are virtually nonexistent.  Most of the waterways and drainage features that have rendered New Orleans habitable have been channeled, contained and covered.  With the exception of Bayou St. John, how many of those that remain visible have any redeeming aesthetic value?  As Morris stated, it almost seems that we are attempting to deny that we are a community shaped and molded by water.  For illustration, he presented side-by-side comparison slides of a small drainage feature in Holland, lined with willow trees and populated by swans, and a similarly sized drainage feature in South Louisiana, lined with discarded appliances.  While this was admittedly an exaggerated comparison, it does reveal a difference of perspective.  Water will always be a part of our landscape; why not embrace it?

                   An interesting point was also made about the engineering wisdom of our attempts to hide our waterways.  By containing and covering natural collection and transmission streams, we remove that water from our natural water table, resulting in acceleration of our land’s tendency to shrink and subside.  We’ve all recently learned what a significant effect subsidence has on our coastal land loss, and the lesson is not lost on anyone who has had to periodically bring in river sand to fill their yards.  Just as our attempts to control the Mississippi river have exacerbated coastal land loss, our efforts to control our interior drainage have impacted interior ground levels.  This is not to suggest that we cease all such attempts at control, but merely that we still have much to learn, and that our actions have consequences, many of them not immediately apparent.

                     The other presentation that resonated most with me was “Smart Schools – The Building Blocks of Thriving Communities, presented by Stephen B. Bingler, AIA, of New Orleans, Andy Kopplin of Teach for America, and Ramsey Green of the New Orleans Recovery School District, moderated by Angela O’Byrne, AIA, of New Orleans.  This session was notable for its focus on schools as a central planning element in Smart Growth, rather than a mere consideration.  As with all of Smart Growth, this focus hearkened back to the days when churches and schools were the center of their communities, rather than sprawling, out-of-the-way campuses, reachable only by automobile or bus.  While this may have greater application in a more urbanized setting, it raised questions of where we’re headed in St. Tammany Parish, as we continue to located sprawling, isolated campuses on the outskirts of development.  It may be time to reevaluate the conventional wisdom, and more effectively integrate the tenets of Smart Growth into our long range planning model.  After all, we’ll have no one to blame but ourselves if we look back in ten or twenty years and wonder how we managed to “pave paradise and put up a parking lot.”

                   The Center for Planning Excellence, its Board of directors, and particularly its President and CEO Elizabeth “Boo” Thomas are to be commended for another excellent, provocative Smart Growth Summit.  More detailed information on the Summit, including recaps of many of the presentations, is available on the Center’s website, at http://www.planningexcellence.org.