Land Use: Blending Smart Growth With Social Equity and Climate Change Mitigation

• Author: Patricia Salkin
• Pages: 349-363

Chapter 23

Land Use: Blending Smart Growth With

Social Equity and Climate Change Mitigation

Patricia Salkin

Land, and how we use it, is at the heart of our ability to achieve the

sustainability goals outlined in Agenda 21. Decisions about what can

be built, and where, have an impact on the natural environment, public

health and safety, and affordability—all important sustainability con-

cepts. Because land use decisionmaking in the United States is decen-

tralized—meaning that the 50 states each provide their own statutory

framework for the tens of thousands of local governments across the

country that have broad authority to exercise land use con-

trol—sustainability cannot be achieved without reforming the legal

structure in which these decisions are made. While a decentralized

system of land use control allows local governments to have more

flexibility in making tailored land use decisions, it also provides the

opportunity for some localities to ignore the need to adopt and imple-

ment sustainable land use policies because some goals, such as hous-

ing affordability for all and the siting of locally unwanted uses, may

not be popular with voting constituents.

This chapter provides a brief background on the evolution of the

U.S. system for controlling land use, with a focus on the most recent

efforts at modernization to achieve sustainability (the smart growth

movement). The chapter identifies and examines current trends that

hold promise for sustainability—integration of environmental justice

principles with local land use planning, the use of community benefit

agreements, and the link between climate change and land use deci-

sionmaking—and which may have enough political power to effect

far-reaching reforms in our approach to land use.

Smart Growth

Sustainable land development requires consistent integration of so-

cial, environmental, and economic considerations into decision-

making to produce results that promote a sound, coordinated, and har-

monious built environment. The traditional “Euclidian” system of

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