Smart Governance for Smart Growth: the Need for Regional Governments

• Jurisdiction: United States,Federal
• Publication year: 2010
• Citation: Vol. 17 No. 4

Smart Governance for Smart Growth: the Need for Regional Governments

Janice C. Griffith

Introduction: Impediments to Smart Growth

In 1900 the City Beautiful movement bloomed brightly in the United States.[1] Once suburban sprawl became the standard pattern of development in the post World War II era, urban areas lost their vitality.[2] Today, at the advent of the twenty-first century, we have the opportunity to restore the earlier urban bloom by transforming our metropolitan areas into more livable, pedestrian friendly, and environmentally sensitive places. We need to replace decentralized sprawl with smarter growth techniques that will free up more land for protected open space through more compact residential and commercial developments.

Sprawl has been described as "unplanned, uncontrolled, and uncoordinated single-use development that does not provide for an attractive and functional mix of uses and/or is not functionally related to surrounding land uses . . . ."[3] Sprawl results in much lower population density than characterized our early cities.[4] This low density development frequently begins at the fringe of already developed areas,[5] but it may also cause new developments to be scattered or removed from existing settlements resulting in isolated development.[6]

Smart growth embodies a range of techniques to meet anticipated growth without sprawl through "smarter" developments that incorporate mixed uses, flexible designs, and greater density than today's suburban residential patterns provide.[7] Flexible designs enable buildings to be placed so as to preserve natural features such as trees, streams, and steep slopes.[8] Through compact building patterns, land can be used more efficiently, thereby reducing infrastructure and development costs and making possible the preservation of more open space and tree cover.[9] These smart growth developments take many forms. They may be identified as cluster developments, open space developments, conservation developments, higher density developments, traditional neighborhood developments, new urbanism developments, transit-oriented developments, and master planned communities/planned unit developments.[10]

A number of impediments inhibit the use of smart growth techniques. Euclidean[11] zoning ordinances in existence throughout the country zone land into separate use districts with specific mandates as to lot size, use, and the permissible size, height, and location of buildings on a particular lot. In contrast, smart growth techniques call for mixing uses within a closer proximity to each other. For example, smart growth developers may place a small shopping center within walking distance of a planned residential community to decrease automobile dependency.

A Euclidean zoning ordinance presents several advantages. Its district layout rigidity makes it possible for builders and owners to know precisely how land can be developed, and its simplicity enables the smallest municipality to administer this form of zoning with speed and certainty.[12] In contrast, the use of smart growth techniques requires planners to make judgments about the feasibility of employing these more flexible planning tools in a particular proposed development. They must review plans and weigh alternative land use and design options to properly implement smart growth. The lack of municipal resources to provide this more costly expertise impedes the full scale use of smart growth techniques.

The hiring of planners capable of administering smart growth development cannot be overemphasized. Developers frequently try to maximize profits. They may arrive at the zoning office with a plan marked "traditional neighborhood development" that places commercial development in close proximity to residential development. Upon further examination, the plan shows that residents must pass through a locked gate and cross several busy street corners in order to shop. Likewise, without oversight, the public squares or plazas that neo-traditional developments emphasize may turn into nothing more than an active recreational complex.

To make smart growth work, all municipal codes, as well as zoning ordinances, must be integrated to provide the type of flexibility demanded. An ordinance regulating tree removal that requires the retention of a certain number of trees on a lot-by-lot basis, for example, might prohibit the developer of a planned community from offsetting compact development in one area with the preservation of a large open area with tree cover elsewhere. The enactment of model smart growth codes in all regionally tied areas experiencing rapid growth would greatly facilitate the use of these techniques. The recently enacted Georgia statute creating the Metropolitan North Georgia Water Planning District, for example, calls for the "[d]evelopment of regionally consistent policies, model ordinances, and minimum standards of performance for local governments relating to the creation and implementation of the plans developed by the district."[13]

Political opposition to smart growth development may further impede its implementation. Many people in the United States prefer living in a rural environment with low density.[14] They will keep moving farther and farther out from the central city when further development engulfs their suburban residences.[15] North Americans value independence and freedom from public regulation. Before they are willing to adopt more compact living, they must come to believe that the benefits of smart growth outweigh the detriments of sprawl. Greater density living will not be palatable until the harms caused by sprawl—congested highways, air pollution, diminished water quality, and loss of open space—are viewed as unsolvable without the use of more smart growth techniques. Thus, even if planners and lawyers draw up a perfect smart growth code, political pressures may prevent its adoption or compromise its administration once adopted.

Comfort with the status quo and fear of the unknown cause further resistance to the adoption of more smart growth techniques. Smart growth cannot be implemented without trust and cooperation between planners and developers. It requires a willingness to be flexible. Powerful stake holders in the continuation of existing land use laws, including the road building and motor vehicle industries, may thwart the smart growth movement. The patronage opportunities provided by these businesses may further influence public officials and legislators to support policies that encourage greater sprawl. The Northern Arc, a proposed four-lane divided highway to be constructed thirty miles north of Atlanta, for example, comes with a price tag of $1.2 billion.[16] Satisfied with the Northern Arc's potential to generate growth, a number of large corporations have endorsed the plan already.[17]

The impediments to smart growth leave unanswered the question of how it can be implemented. One obvious answer lies in the creation of a more centralized government that can exercise control over all of the areas undergoing growth pressures in a sprawling metropolitan region. This Article argues that a regional metropolitan government can best effectuate smart growth policies. Part I of the Article presents the reasons why local governance should be replaced by a regional government in metropolitan areas that need to combat sprawl with smart growth policies. Part II argues that a representative regional government is preferable to the exercise of regional control by non-elected public authority officials. Part III examines the unlikelihood of representative regional governance in Georgia under the state's existing legal framework. Finally, Part IV examines the governmental structures that have been created in Georgia to deal with sprawl's effects.

I. The Need for Regional Governance in Metropolitan Areas

Sprawl results from decisions made by the marketplace and the various levels of government. This form of growth rarely respects municipal political boundary lines.[18] Although the problems associated with sprawl extend beyond these local jurisdictions, most growth management programs have been administered at the local level due to the placement of land use powers in counties and municipalities.[19] As long as public decision making remains under the jurisdiction of multi-governments in a sprawling area, there will be no coordinated effort to address sprawl's effects.[20] In a large metropolitan area, only a coherent governmental structure that encompasses the entire region can combat sprawl. Mass transit options, which could ease highway congestion and decrease air pollution, for example, cannot be implemented without an integrated transportation system that serves an entire region.[21]

To effectuate smart growth management, policymakers must recognize the interdependence of all local and state land use decisions. The external costs of growth spread across jurisdictional borders and require a coherent common approach. Air pollution, water quality violations, and the depletion of natural resources do not stop at the county or city line. The costs of transit systems, if not shared by users in the entire region, place extra burdens on the public entities that fund and provide transit service. Outlying areas that encourage low density and large lot zoning shift growth away from the central city and leave the region saddled with increased air pollution and traffic congestion caused by longer automobile commutes. Furthermore, if one locality exercises its land use powers so as to permit undesirable or harmful development at its borders, it adversely affects adjoining communities.

The fact that local governments lack consistency with optimal service areas or with the scientific imperatives of natural resource preservation further demonstrates the need for regional governance.[22] Metropolitan Atlanta, covering ten counties,[23] the city of Atlanta, and sixty-three...